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JANUARY, 1916 BULLETIN 370 

CORNELL UNIVERSITY 

AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION OF THE 
NEW YORK STATE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE 

Beverly T. Galloway, Director 
Department of Forestry 



FOREST LEGISLATION IN 

AMERICA PRIOR TO 

MARCH 4, 1789 

BY J. P KINNEY 



PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY 
ITHACA. NEW!YORK 



^ 




t>\ 



J 

CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION 

Experimenting Staff 

BEVERLY T. GALLOWAY, B.Agr.Sc, LL.D., Director. 
HENRY H. WIKG, M.S. in Agr., Animal Husbandry. 
T. LYTTLETON LYON, Ph.D., Soil Technology. 
JOHN L. STONE, B.Agr., Farm Practice. 
JAMES E. RICE, B.S.A., Poultry Husbandry. 
GEORGE W. CAVANAUGH, B.S., Agricultural Chemistry. 
HERBERT H. WHETZEL, M.A., Plant Pathology. 
ELMER O. PIPPIN, B.S.A., Soil Technology. 
G. F. WARREN, Ph.D., Farm Management. 
WILLIAM A. STOCKING, Jr., M.S.A., Dairy Industry. 
WILPORD M. WILSON, M.D., Meteorology. 
RALPH S. HOSMER, B A.S., M.F., Forestry. 
JAMES G. NEEDHAM, Ph.D., Entomology and Limnology. 
ROLLINS A. EMERSON, D.Sc, Plant Breeding. 
HARRY H. LOVE. Ph.D., Plant Breeding. 
ARTHUR W. GILBERT, Ph.D., Plant Breeding. 
DONALD REDDICK, Ph.D., Plant Pathology. 
EDWARD G. MONTGOMERY, M.A., Farm Crops. 
WILLIAM A. RILEY, Ph.D., Entomology. 
MERRITT W. HARPER, M.S., Animal Husbandry. 
JAMES A. BIZZELL, Ph.D., Soil Technology. 
' GLENN W. HERRICK, B.S.A., Economic Entomology. 
HOWARD W. RILEY, M.E., Farm Mechanics. 
CYRUS R. CROSBY, A.B., Entomology. 
HAROLD E. ROSS, M.S. A., Dairy Industry. 
KARL McK. WIEGAND, Ph.D., Botany. 
EDWARD A. WHITE, US., Floriculture. 
■ WILLIAM H. CHANDLER, Ph.D., Pomology. 
ELMER S. SAVAGE, M.S. A., Ph.D., Animal Husbandry. 
LEWIS KNUDSON, Ph.D., Plant Physiology. 
KENNETH C. LIVERMORE, Ph.D., Farm Management. 
ALVIN C. BEAL, Ph.D.. Floriculture. 
MORTIER F. BARRUS, Ph.D., Plant Pathology. 
CLYDE H. MYERS, M.S., Ph.D., Plant Breeding. 
GEORGE W. TAILBY, Jr., B.S.A., Superintendent of Livestock. 
EDWARD S. GUTHRIE, M.S. in Agr., Ph.D., Dairy Industry. 
JAMES C. BRADLEY, Ph.D., Entomology. 
PAUL WORK, U.S., A.B., Vegetable Gardening. 
JOHN BENTLEY, Jr., B.S., M.F., Forestry. 
EARL W. BENJAMIN, Ph.D., Poultry Husbandry. 
EMMONS W. LELAND, B.S.A., Soil Technology. 
CHARLES T. GREGORY, Ph.D., Plant Pathology. 
WALTER W. FISK, M.S. in Agr., Dairy Industry. 
ARTHUR L. THOMPSON, Ph.D., Farm Management. 
ROBERT MATHESOX, Ph.D., Entomology. 
HORACE M. PICKERILL, B.S. in .\gr., Dairy Industry. 
MORTIMER D. LEONARD, B.S., Entomology. 
FRANK E. RICE, Ph.D., Agricultural Chemistry. 
VERN B. STEWART, Ph.D., Plant Pathology. 

IVAN C. JAGGER, M.S. in Agr., Plant Pathology (In cooperation with Rochester University). 
CHARLES H. IIADLEY, B.S., Entomology. 
DANIEL S. FOX, B.S., Farm Management. 
WILLIAM I. MYERS, B.S., Farm Management. 
LEW E. HARVl'.Y, U.S., Farm Management. 
BRISTOW ADAMS. B.A., Editor. 
LELA G. GROSS, A.ssistant Editor. 

The regular bulletms of the Station are sent free on request to residents of New York State. 

35« 



D. of D. 
APR 6 1916 



^^ 






CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introduction 361 

Legislation regarding forest fires 363 

In Massachusetts 363 

The Plymouth Colony 363 

The Massachusetts Bay Colony 364 

The Province of Massachusetts Bay 364 

In New Hampshire 365 

In Connecticut 365 

The New Haven settlements 365 

The settlement^ on the Connecticut River 366 

United Connecticut under the Charter of 1662 366 

In Rhode Island 366 

In New York 367 

In New Jersey 368 

In Pennsylvania 369 

In Delaware 370 

In North Carolina 370 

General legislation directed toward the conservation of timber and 

the prevention of trespass 371 

In Massachusetts 371 

The Plymouth Colony 371 

The Massachusetts Bay Colony 371 

Under the Provincial Charter of 1691 and the Confederation 372 

In New Hampshire 373 

In Connecticut 374 

The New Haven settlements 374 

The settlements on the Connecticut River 375 

United Connecticut under the Charter of 1662 375 

In Rhode Island 376 

The Providence Plantations 376 

The Newport settlement 377 

The Portsmouth settlement 377 

The united settlements in Rhode Island 377 

In New York 377 

In New Jersey 378 

In Pennsylvania .- 380 

In Delaware 380 

In Maryland 380 

Regulation of the lumber and timber industry 381 

Statutory prices for lumber and timber products 381 

Regulation of the sale of firewood 381 

Inspection of timber products, and export duties thereon 381 

In Massachusetts 381 

The Massachusetts Bay Colony 381 

The Province of Massachusetts Bay 382 

Under the Confederation 383 

359 



360 Bulletin 370 

PAGE 

Regulation of the lumber and timber industry (continued) : 

Inspection of timber products, and export duties thereon (cow^^mm^c?) : 

In New Hampshire 383 

In Connecticut 384 

The settlements on the Connecticut River 384 

United Connecticut under the Charter of 1662 384 

In Rhode Island 385 

In New York 385 

In New Jersey 385 

In Pennsylvania 386 

In Virginia 386 

In North Carolina 386 

In South Carolina 387 

British legislation directed toward the control of forest industries in 

the colonies 389 

Special developments in forest law during the fifty years preceding 

the formation of the Union 397 

The control of sand dunes 397 

Cooperative forestry 398 

Use of rivers as highways for logs, rafts, and other timber 399 

Sources of information 403 



FOREST LEGISLATION IN AMERICA PRIOR TO 
MARCH 4, 1789 1 

J. P Kinney 
INTRODUCTION 

When the writer formed the resolution, several years ago, to write 
a history of the development of forest law in America, he believed that 
the whole period previous to the nineteenth century could be covered 
in a dozen pages. From the time when he began the study of forestry, 
in the first year of the twentieth century, the one thought that had been 
dominant in American forestry literature was the novelty of the prop- 
aganda for forest preservation and extension in America. A few older 
men knew that the need of forest conservation had been evident for a 
long time, but the younger students of forestry derived their ideas largely 
from the publications emanating from the nascent Bureau of Forestry 
in the national Department of Agriculture. A national conviction as 
to the need of forest management was developing. The new life in the 
Nation outshone the previous activities of the individual States. 

Several writers on the development of forestry in America had mentioned 
a few instances of early legislation in the States or the colonies, and, 
either by direct statement or by implication, had suggested that these 
early enactments were only sporadic manifestations of the spirit of forest 
conservation. In searching for other instances, the writer soon found 
that forestry and timber problems had claimed the attention of colonial 
legislative bodies on many occasions during the seventeenth centiu-y, 
and that hundreds of such laws had been enacted previous to the establish- 
ment of the National Government. Long before the Federal Constitution 
became effective — on March 4, 1789 — the legislatures of most of the 
colonies had realized that forest fires constituted a great menace to the 
welfare of the people, and modem trespass laws and regulations of the 
lumber industry have their forerunners in the legislation of the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries. The influence of American forests in 
the development of the spirit of opposition to Great Britain that cul- 
minated in the Revolution of 1776 has not been given its due importance 
by political and economic writers, nor has it been known that certain 
developments of forest regulation in the colonies were strikingly antici- 
patory of recent movements in national forest policy. 

1 A part of a study presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in partial 
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of master in forestry. 

361 



LEGISLATION REGARDING FOREST FIRES 

IN MASSACHUSETTS 
THE PLYMOUTH COLONY 

On December 21, 1620, the Pilgrims made their first landing at Plym- 
outh Bay, on the east coast of Massachusetts. In the following January 
they transferred their effects from the Mayflower to the rude cabins which 
they had constructed, and began the task of building a colony on the 
forested shores of New England. 

Only meager records of their activities are left; yet it is known that 
the clearing of the forest must have progressed rapidly, for on March 29, 
1626, the legislative authority for the Plymouth Colony passed an ordi- 
nance reciting the inconveniences that are likely to arise in any com- 
munity from a lack of timber, and declaring that no man should sell 
or transport any timber whatsoever out of the colony without the approval 
of the governor and council. Any violation of this ordinance was to be 
punished by a forfeiture of the timber and by a fine of twice its value 
for the benefit of the Plymouth Company.^ The crude and limited means 
of transportation available at that time made it imperative that a supply 
of timber for local uses be maintained near the colony, and justified the 
imposition of restrictions on the uses which the individual should be 
permitted to make of timber growing on common lands. 

Nor was the ax of the ambitious pioneer the only menace to the forests 
surrounding the newly founded colony. As early as 1633 loss had been 
occasioned through the indiscreet firing of the woods; and in that year 
the setting of such fires was forbidden between the months of September 
and March under penalty of the payment of all damages resulting, and 
the firing of the woods during the remaining months was permitted only 
on condition that due warning be given to all neighbors. 

On September 4, 1638, the setting of fires was forbidden except between 
February j and April 15, and a forfeit of ten shillings, or a whipping 
as an alternative, was fixed for the offense of firing the woods without 
just cause. This law was reenacted on October 20, 1646. The revised 
laws of September 29, 1658, forbade any one to fire the woods, even though 
he had just occasion therefor, without giving warning to his neighbors, 
fixed the open season for firing between February 15 and " the latter 
end of April," and kept the penalty of ten shillings or a whipping for 
an unjustified firing. These provisions were retained in substantially 
the same form in the revised laws of the colony as published in 1672. 

2 The various laws referred to in this bulletin are contained in full in the works listed on pages 403-405. 



364 Bulletin 370 

Under the new charter granted by King William and Queen Mary in 1691 , 
the Plymouth Colony became a part of the Province of Massachusetts 
Bay. 

THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY 

In the records of the Massachusetts Bay Colony is found an order 
against the setting of fires, of an even earlier date than the first order 
at Plymouth. On July 26, 163 1, the court of the colony, founded by 
John Endicott and his associates in 1628, forbade the burning of any 
ground prior to the ist of March under pain of payment of full damage 
and such penalty as the court should see fit to inflict. 

An act of November 5, 1639, in this colony imposed a fine of forty 
shillings, in addition to the satisfaction of all damages, on any one who 
should set fire on another's ground or on common ground. Whipping 
or other corporal punishment was to be inflicted if the offending party, 
whether man or woman, was unable to pay the fine or satisfy the dam- 
ages. The act excepted from its penalties those who burned ground for 
needful or fit purposes in March or April, but made persons setting fire 
on their own lands liable for the damage caused others through the escape 
of the fire. 

An act of November 4, 1646, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, read 
as follows: 

Whosoev'r shall kindle any fires in ye woods before ye loth day of ye first mo., 
or after ye last day of ye 2d mo., or on ye last day of ye weeke, or Lord's day, shall 
pay all damages yt any p'son shall lose thereby, or halfe so much to ye common 
treasury.' 

The provisions of the act of 1646, with minor modifications as reenacted 
in 1652, remained the law in the Massachusetts Bay Colony until the 
creation of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1691, and for more 
than a half century thereafter. An act of May 30, 1679, made the law 
against the setting of fires in the woods applicable to Indians also. 

THE PROVINCE OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY 

An act of January 15, 1743, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. 
specifically recognized the damage caused by fire to young tree growth 
and to the soil. This act imposed a penalty of forty shillings, for the 



3 Prior to January i, 1752, the English people, in conformity with the Jewish chronology adopted in 
the Julian Calendar, were accustomed to consider the civil year as beginning on March 25 instead of on 
January i, the first day of the Gregorian Calendar. During the early colonial period it was rather com- 
mon, in writing any date falling between January i and March 24 inclusive, to iiiclude the last digit or 
the last two digits of the numbers expressing both the Gregorian calendar year in which this date fell 
and the preceding year. Ihus January 5, 1653-4, and March 24, 1709-10, would denote respectively 
January s, 1654, and March 24, 1710, according to the present system of chronology. However, this 
practice was not uniform, even in the same colony, and it is sometimes impossible to determine in which 
of two successive years any event took place which is recorded as occurring between January i and March 24. 
So also, in denoting the months tiy ordinal numerals, some writers called January the first month while 
others considered March the first month. Occasionally a thoughtful chronicler has added after the numeral 
the name of the month. It is probable that the act of November 4, 1646, cited above, considered March 
the first month. 



Forest Legislation in America Prior to March 4, 1789 365 

benefit of the person suing for it, in addition to a liability for all damages, 
on any one who should willingly set fire in any woods or land lying in 
common within any town unless he were duly licensed by a majority 
,vote of the town or the proprietors. The act held parents and masters 
liable for such damages caused by minors or servants unless satisfactory 
proof was presented that the minor or the servant was employed by some 
other person to accomplish the burning, in which case that person became 
liable for damages and the penalty. If towns or proprietors desired to 
burn lands, they must give reasonable notice within the towns where the 
lands were situated and also to the selectmen of adjacent towns. Because 
of the difficulties attendant on proof of the unlicensed setting of fires, 
the act provided that upon oath of the plaintiff or other creditable witness 
that fire had been kindled, and the presentation of circumstances making 
it appear highly probable that the defendant had set the fire or had caused 
it to be set, judgment should be given iinless the defendant acquitted him- 
self by oath, in which case he was to have costs against the plaintiff. This 
act was limited to three years, but subsequent acts continued it in sub- 
stantially the same form until November i, 1797. 

Section 4 of a general trespass act of March 11, 1785, reenacting the 
substance of several separate acts passed before the institution of the 
Articles of Confederation, provided that if any one should willfully and 
maliciously make a fire with design to communicate the same to the soil, 
grass, trees, poles, or underbrush of another, or should willfully and 
maliciously suffer any fire so to communicate as to cause damage to the 
other to the amount of ten pounds, he should, on conviction, be fined, 
imprisoned, confined to hard labor, or bound to good behavior, or all of 
said punishments, according to the nature and aggravation of the offense. 

IN NEW HAMPSHIRE 

In 1639 the court at Exeter, New Hampshire, ordered that no one 
should fire the woods after the middle of April so as to destroy the feed 
of the cattle or do other hurt, under pain of paying the damages resulting. 

The General Lawes and Liberties of the Province of New Hampshire 
made by the General Assembly at Portsmouth, March 16, 1680, contained 
a provision that no one should fire the woods between the ist of March 
and the latter end of April, under penalty of making good all damages 
and paying a fine of ten shillings, or being set in the stocks. 

IN CONNECTICUT 
THE NEW HAVEN SETTLEMENTS 

The revision of the laws of the New Haven Colony issued in 1644-45 
provided for a fine of forty shillings, to be paid to the town by any one 
who should kindle a fire in his garden or any part of his house lot for the 



366 Bulletin 370 

burning of leaves, straw, cornstalks, or other rubbish, notwithstanding 
any excuse that he might make as to his care and attendance, the standing 
of the wind, or the calmness of the season. 

The New Haven Code of i6j6 declared that if any one should set fire 
in the woods or grounds lying in common, or inclosed, so that any damage 
should result to another person, in any season or manner not allowed by 
the authority of the plantation, or on the last day of the week, or on 
the Lord's Day, he should pay to the plantation one and one-half times 
the damage caused, or, if unable to pay, be corporally punished. In 
1662 the New Haven settlements were joined to the Connecticut Colony. 

THE SETTLEMENTS ON THE CONNECTICUT RIVER 

The Code of Laws of Connecticut Colony, published in 1650, forbade 
the setting of fires in the woods before the loth day of the first month 
or after the last day of the second month, or on Saturday or Sunday, 
under penalty of one and one-half times the damage caused, or twenty 
stripes. 

UNITED CONNECTICUT UNDER THE CHARTER OF 1662 

A Connecticut act of May, 1733, repealed the former act regarding the 
firing of woods, and ordained that after August 10, 1733, any one firing 
the woods at any time of the year should be liable for all damages caused. 
The act threw the burden of proof of innocence on the defendant, but gave 
him double costs from the plaintiff if he established his innocence. The 
inhabitants of towns were permitted to bum their commons under agree- 
ment at town meetings, but they must pay all damages caused to others 
thereby. The Acts and Laws of Connecticut published in 1750 retained 
the provisions of the act of 1733. 

IN RHODE ISLAND 

On July 7, 1640, at Newport, Rhode Island, William Coddington, 
Governor, with the other assistants, agreed with the Sachem of Narra- 
gansett and the other sachems that if any Indian should build a fire at 
any time of the year on the lands of the Plantations and not extinguish 
the same on leaving it, and any damage should result, the damage should 
be adjudged and the Indian tried by the law of the Plantations. 

On October 25, 1704, the General Assembly of Rhode Island and 
Providence Plantations forbade the setting of fires to burn the woods 
at any time "under any pretence whatsoever" other than from March 
10 to May 10 of each year, or on Saturday or Sunday within this period. 
A violation of the act subjected the offender to a fine of thirty shillings, 
one-half to be paid to the complainant and one-half to the town; and 
an action in trespass for damages by the person injured was expressly 
authorized. 



Forest Legislation in America Prior to March 4, 1789 367 

The penalty provided by the act of 1704 was increased to ten pounds 
by an act of August, 1722, with a proviso that if the offender had no 
personal estate with which to satisfy the fine he might be imprisoned 
for not over three months or be given a whipping of not over thirty-nine 
stripes. 

An act of 1750 forbade the setting of fires "in the woods in any Part 
of this Colony, to run at large, at any Time or Times of the Year, under 
any pretence whatsoever ' ' under penalty of fifty pounds for the first 
offence and one hundred pounds for the second, one-half to be paid to the 
informer and one-half to the poor of the town. The burden of proof 
of innocence was placed on the defendant and he was to be imprisoned 
if the fine were not paid. 

IN NEW YORK 

The Duke's Laws (published on March i, 1665, subsequent to the capture 
of New Amsterdam by the English in 1664 under the direction of James, 
Duke of York) provided that if any one should kindle a fire in the 
woods or grounds lying in common, or in his own grounds so that the same 
should run into the lands of another, the offender should be liable for 
one and one-half times the damage caused, and in default of payment 
should be punished with twenty stripes or should do service to expiate 
the crime. The Dutch regained control of New York in 1673, but upon 
the reestablishment of the English government in the following year the 
Duke's Laws were again promulgated. 

On November 25, 17 10, a special act imposed a fine of forty shillings 
for the offence of firing "any uplands, plains, Woods, Trees, Shrubs, 
underwoods, or bushes" within the counties of Suffolk, Queens, Kings, 
and New York. The offender might be imprisoned for not over three 
months for failure to pay the fine, and he was to be liable for all damages. 
A similar special act of December 17, 1743, imposed a fine of five pounds, 
one-half to be paid to the informer and one-half to the poor fund, for 
tiring the woods within the counties of Albany, Dutchess, and Suffolk, 
and in the Manor of Livingston, "at any time whatsoever," in addition 
to liabihty for all damages. The penalties of the act were applicable 
to one who set fire on his own land and allowed it to escape. This act 
empowered any person who should discover a fire in the woods of the 
counties or the manor named "to require and command all or any of 
the neighboring and adjacent inhabitants to aid & assist him" in 
extinguishing the fire, and imposed a forfeit of six shillings for each refusal, 
neglect, or delay of a person so commanded to help and assist. This 
act was limited to expire on June i, 1746. 

On December 16, 1758, the provisions of the act of December 17, 1743, 
were made the law as to the whole Colony of New York, and on the same 



368 Bulletin 370 

day a special act forbade the burning of old grass on certain beaches 
and islands of Suffolk County. The last-named act, which was to expire 
on May i, 1760, was continued by successive acts until January i, 1785. 

A special act of unusual character was passed on November 8, 1760. 
This provided that the freeholders and inhabitants of the city of Albany, 
and of each town, manor, or precinct within the counties of Albany and 
Ulster, might elect at their annual town meetings such number of free- 
holders as they judged necessary to act as "firemen." These firemen 
were to have power to stunmon any of the inhabitants within their 
respective districts to assist "with all care and possible diligence" in 
extinguishing any forest fire within the district or the adjacent woods. 
Any person who without lawful excuse refused, neglected, or delayed 
to render such assistance when commanded, as shown by the oath of 
a fireman or otherwise, was to forfeit three shillings for each default, 
one-half to be used for the benefit of the fireman reporting and one-half 
for those assisting at the fire. This act was to expire on January i, 1766. 

On December 19, 1766, the provisions of the act of November 8, 1760, 
were reenacted and extended to include the county of Orange. An addi- 
tional clause imposed a fine of two pounds for every default or neglect of a 
fireman to do his duty. This act was limited to expire on January i, 1777. 

On March 12, 1788, all prior general acts regarding the firing of the 
woods were repealed, and a penalty of ten pounds, in addition to damages, 
was imposed for the offenses defined by the act of December 16, 1758. 
This act required the justices of the peace, the supervisor, the commis- 
sioners of highways, and the officers of the militia not under the rank 
of captain, residing in a town where the woods were on fire, to order as 
many as they should deem necessary of the inhabitants of the town liable 
to work on highways, to assist in extinguishing the fire; and any person 
so ordered who should refuse or neglect to comply should forfeit four 
shillings for every day of neglect or refusal, with costs of recovery, and the 
oath of the person who gave the order was to be sufficient evidence for 
a conviction. The forfeiture recovered was to be used as a reward to 
such person or persons as a major part of the officers aforesaid should 
deem best entitled thereto, for superior exertions in extinguishing the 

fire. 

IN NEW JERSEY 

In 1683 the General Assembly at Burlington, in West Jersey, forbade 
any one from thenceforth to fire the woods before the 20th day of the 
twelfth month, under penalty of paying all damages and also of being 
fined not to exceed forty shillings. Firing within one's own lands was 
excepted from the penalties, provided that care was taken to prevent 
the fire from running outside and that no damage was done to the property 
of another person. 



Forest Legislation in America Prior to March 4, 1789 369 

A New Jersey act of January 26, 1717, contained the same penalties 
and provisions as the act of 1683, except that the open season for firing 
was limited to the period from February 14 to April 14 of each year. 
This act made it clear that a person setting fire with care on his own 
land within this period was liable only for damages if the fire escaped from 
his control, while every person was liable for all damages caused by a fire 
set at any other time of the year. 

An act of July 31, 1740, which specifically repealed the act of 1717, 
provided that if a person should set fire to his own woods at any time he 
should pay all damages suffered by another ; and if he should set fire to 
woods not belonging to himself he should pay all damages suffered by any 
one, and forfeit forty shillings and costs to any one who should prose- 
cute for the offense. Thus New Jersey, like other provinces and colonies, 
was compelled to give up the idea of an open season for burning, make 
all persons responsible at all times of the year for any damage caused by 
fires that they should set, and hold a severe penalty over the heads of 
those reckless ones who were accustomed to setting fires on the property 
of others. 

On June 20, 1 765, it was enacted that any one found guilty after February 
I, 1766, of violating the provisions of the act of July 31, 1740, should be 
fined twenty pounds, or, if unable to pay the fine and costs, should be 
liable to imprisonment at the discretion of the county court, and justices 
and grand juries were urged to activity in the discovery of offenders. 

IN PENNSYLVANIA 

The first Assembly in the Province of Pennsylvania convened on March 
10, 1683, and on March 20, 1683, passed a bill which provided that if 
any one should set a fire before the first day of the first month yearly 
he should make good all damages which should result from such act. 
An act of November 27, 1700, included the additional limitation that no 
fires should be set after the first day of the third month. 

On March 27, 17 13, the act of November 27, 1700, was amended so as 
to require a twenty-four-hours notice to the owner of any fence or building 
within one mile of which a fire was set, even within the seasonable limits 
allowed for burning by the act of 1700. 

An act passed in the eighth year of the reign of George II (on March 29, 
1735) referred to the act of November 27, 1700, stated that experience 
had shown "that the setting the woods on Fire at any time hath proved 
rather hurtful than beneficial to this Province, and great Losses have 
happened by Occasion of such Fire," repealed the previous act, and pro- 
vided that thereafter every person should be liable for all damages caused 
by a fire which he should set, or cause to be set, at any time. The last 
clause of this act provided that if the offense were committed by any 



370 Bulletin 370 

servant, Negro, or slave without the direction of his, her, or their master 
or mistress, and the master or mistress should refuse to pay the damages 
and costs, the offender should receive not over twenty-one stripes " on 
his or her bare back " at the discretion of the justice, and should be com- 
mitted to the county workhouse until the costs of the prosecution were 

paid. 

IN DELAWARE 

The provisions of the Duke's Laws regarding the firing of the woods 
as issued at New York on March, i, 1665, were applicable to the settle- 
ments on the Delaware, which fell into the control of the English at the 
same time as did New Netherland. Subsequent to 1682 these settle- 
ments were under the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania, but they were given 
a separate assembly in 1702. 

An act of the Delaware Assembly in 1739 declared that whoever should 
fire the woods to the damage of another person, before March 10 or after 
May I, should forfeit five pounds and costs, one-half to be paid to the 
poor and one-half to the informer, besides damages to the person injured; 
and if the offender lacked goods to make satisfaction, he should be liable 
to servitude. A Negro or a mulatto was to receive thirty-one lashes for 
the offense, and there appears to have been no alternative provision. 
An act of 1 741 specified certain areas in which one would incur the penalties 
of the act of 1739 for setting fire at any time to the damage of another. 

IN NOR^TH CAROLINA 

In chapter 25 of the Acts of 1777, State of North Carolina, it is declared 
that the burning of the woods is " destructive to cattle and hogs, extremely 
prejudicial to Soil, and oftentimes of fatal consequences to Planters and 
Farmers, by destroying their fences and other Improvements." Section 2 
of this act made it unlawful to fire the woods except on one's own property, 
and then notice must first be given to adjacent owners at least two days 
before the firing and effectual care must be taken to extinguish the fire 
before it could reach any vacant or unpatented lands. Section 3 imposed 
penalties for offenders, and section 4 provided that any slave, free Negro 
or mulatto, or vagrant person, who should be unable to pay the fine, was 
to "receive on his bare Back thirty-nine Lashes, well laid on."'' 

Chapter 29 of the Laws of 1782 declared that the penalties in the act 
of 1777 were insufficient, and amended section 3 by imposing a fine of 
twenty-five pounds for each offense, to be recovered " by Action of Debt, 
Bill, Plaint, or Information to use of person who shall sue or prosecute 
for the same," and the' offender was further liable to the injured party 
for all damages suffered. 

* Whipping of free persons was repealed by chapter 182, Laws of 1782. 



GENERAL LEGISLATION DIRECTED TOWARD THE CONSERVA- 
TION OF TIMBER AND THE PREVENTION OF TRESPASS 

IN MASSACHUSETTS 
THE PLYMOUTH COLONY 

The first legislation in America having as an object the conservation 
of the supply of timber appears to have been the order of the Plymouth 
Court, dated March 29, 1626, to which reference has already been made 
(page 363). The need of conserving the timber resources through a pre- 
vention of waste and a supervision of utilization became more apparent 
as the years passed. 

The ordinances of the Plymouth Colony as revised and published in 
October, 1636, forbade any person to sell out of the colony any boards, 
plank, or timber cut from the swamps reserved for public use, without 
leave from the public authorities. On June 29, 1652, the General Court 
at Plymouth ordered that whosoever should saw any boards at any place 
within the colony not in the bounds of any particular town should pay the 
Government twenty pence for every thousand feet of timber or plank. 
The General Laws of Plymouth Colony as revised and issued on September 
29, 1658, retained the prohibition of the laws of 1636 against the sale of 
timber from the reserved swamps, referred to the loss that the country 
suffered because some persons were accustomed to fell timber on the com- 
mon and allow it to waste, and enacted that any person who should fell 
such timber and not square nor rive it within six months should forfeit 
the same to the use of any one who should see fit to take it. This provision 
was reenacted in the General Laws as revised and published in 1672. 

In 1669 it was ordered that no bark nor boards should be transported 
out of the colony, nor any kind of timber except that which was wrought 
into vessels or casks, on penalty of the forfeiture of the same to the colony ; 
and an act of 1672 forbade the exportation of bark or unmanufactured tim- 
ber out of Plymouth Colony during a period of seven years, under penalty 
of the forfeittire of the same or its value. The penalties were not to be 
imposed if the shipper proved that the timber or bark came from his own 
lands. 

A Plymouth order of 1670 stated that several towns of the colony were 
already much straitened , for building timber, and granted such towns the 
privilege of obtaining it from towns having plenty. 

THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY 

Similar solicitude as to the necessity of controlling the use of the for- 
ests was felt in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, established in 1628; and 
on November '7, 1632, the Court at Boston, in order to preserve good 
timber for the more necessary uses, ordered that no one should fell any 

371 



372 Bulletin 370 

wood on public grounds for paling except such as had been viewed and 
allowed by the proper public official. The prohibition of the exportation 
of timber from this colony, which had earlier been imposed, was repealed 
in 1 640. In 1 660 the right of commonage in wood and timber was restricted 
to those already having the right and those to whom the inhabitants of 
the towns should extend it by a vote. 

UNDER THE PROVINCIAL CHARTER OF 1691 AND THE CONFEDERATION 

An act of March 2, 1694, in the Massachusetts Bay Province, forbade 
any one to cut trees from the lands of another or from the common of a 
town in wliich he did not have a right of commonage, without license, 
under a penalty of twenty shillings for every tree above one foot in diame- 
ter and ten shillings for every tree of smaller diameter. A second offense 
was punished by an additional fine of twenty shillings for the benefit of 
the poor of the town. These penalties were repeated in an act of June 10, 
1698, with a further provision of treble damages for other wood or under- 
wood. 

In 1726 the penalties for cutting trees from the lands of others in the 
Massachusetts Province were increased to forty shillings for every tree 
one foot in diameter and for all trees of greater diameter three times their 
value besides the forty shillings, to twenty shillings for every tree or pole 
under one foot in diameter, and for wood and underwood treble its value. 
If the oath of the complainant were supported by circumstances making 
it highly probable that the defendant had committed the trespass, the 
burden of proof was on the defendant to avoid judgment. 

A Massachusetts trespass act of November 23, 1785, reads in part as 

follows : 

That if any person shall cut down, destroy or carry away any tree or trees whatever, 
placed or growing for use, shade or ornament; or any timber, wood or underwood, 
standing, lying or growing on land not his own; not having the consent of the owner 

thereof, the person so offending, shall forfeit and pay 

for each tree or stick of timber so cut down, destroyed or carried away 

a fine not less than Five, nor more than Forty Shillings, to the use of the Common- 
wealth, and shall be liable to answer in damages to the party 

injured. 

This act provided that if any person, being indicted and sentenced, was 
unable to pay the fine, the court might order " such person to be publicly 
whipped, not exceeding twenty stripes, or be imprisoned not exceeding 
ninety days, and to find sureties for his good behavior for the term of one 
year." 

On October 24, 1783, the General Court passed an act forbidding the 
cutting or destroying of white pine trees twenty-four inches or upward 
in diameter twelve inches from the ground, from any lands of the State, 
without previous license from the Legislature, under penalty of thirty 
pounds; and the penalty was incurred by any one who ^ould aid or as- 



Forest Legislation in America Prior to March 4, 1789 373 

sist in such cutting or destruction or in the drawing away of trees so cut 
or felled. This act also fixed a penalty of three pounds for the unlawful 
taking of any pine tree less than twenty-four inches in diameter twelve 
inches from the ground. Two-thirds of the penalties recovered went to 
the Commonwealth and one-third to the informer. This law was strik- 
ingly similar to the one that had aroused such opposition on the part of 
the colonists of New Hampshire when imposed by direction of the Crown 
during the colonial period. However, it shoiild be observed that the col- 
onists stated their grievances as consisting largely in the fact that the royal 
surveyor-general did not promptly select and mark the trees to be reserved 
for the navy, and that thus vast quantities of timber which were not needed 
for naval purposes were tied up uselessly, to the disadvantage of all. 

IN NEW HAMPSHIRE 

In the year 1640, at the newly founded town of Exeter within what later 
became the State of New Hampshire, the inhabitants voted that no one 
should fell any oak within a half mile of the town, except on his own plant- 
ing lot or for buildings or fences, under penalty of five shillings for each 
tree unlawfully felled. In 1660, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a fine of 
five shillings was imposed for every tree cut by the inhabitants except 
for their own buildings, fences, and firewood; and in the towns of Kittery 
and Dover strict limitations were put on the number of trees that a person 
could have, felled and unmanufactured, at one time, the limit at. Dover 
being ten, with a forfeit of ten shillings for every tree in excess of this num- 
ber. 

In providing for a settlement of the boundaries of Exeter, New Hamp- 
shire, in 1667, the General Court ordered that all pine trees fit for masts, 
twenty-four inches in diameter three feet from the ground, growing more 
than three miles from the Exeter meetinghouse and within the boundaries 
of the town, should be reserved for the public ; and the Court fixed a 
penalty of ten pounds for each tree of this character that should be 
unlawfully felled, one-half of the penalty to go to the informer and one- 
half to the treasury of the county. 

At Hampton on May 13, 1680, selectmen were chosen to act for the town 
in general matters, but these men were prohibited from disposing of any 
timber, this being a matter that rested with the freemen of the town ; and 
at the same town on June 12, 1680, the freemen chose three men who were 
"to prosecute by way of suit or other ways, against any person or persons 
that shall trespass or have trespassed upon the town's rights, either in 
timber or land, by fencing or in other ways." 

A New Hampshire act of October 8, 1697, fixed a penalty of five shil- 
lings for every tree cut without leave on the land of another, the fine to be 



374 Bulletin 370 

paid to the person damaged, and imposed a fine of from forty shillings 
to one crown for the cutting of a marked boundary tree. A general tres- 
pass SLtt of the same year was broad enough to include injury to trees. 

An act for preventing trespasses, passed on October 16, 1707, required 
that any person who should without permission cut trees from the lands 
of another should pay to the party injured twenty shillings for every tree 
one foot or over in diameter, ten shillings for smaller trees, and treble its 
value for wood and underwood. For a second offense, in addition to the 
above forfeit and damages to the injured party, the offender must pay a 
forfeit of twenty shillings to the poor fund or suffer one month imprison- 
ment. Children or servants for whose offenses the parents or the master 
refused to answer might be whipped or set in the stocks or the cage. 

An act of the General Court in 17 18 imposed for each tree a penalty 

of twenty shillings or more, according to its value, to be paid to the party 

damaged, and ordained that "the Owners shall be accounted those, or 

such as derive a right from those to whom the Land upon which said 

Trees grow, is laid out, and bounded by the Layers out of Land chosen in 

each town," except where the right to the timber was in one person and that 

to the land in another, in which case the damage went to the owner of the 

timber. The act was not to apply to trees cut for the use of the royal 

navy. 

IN CONNECTICUT 

THE NEW HAVEN SETTLEMENTS 

The need of controlling the cutting of timber on public lands was rec- 
ognized also in the settlements in Connecticut. An order issued on Novem- 
ber 25, 1639, by the General Court of the New Haven Colony, founded in 
1638, forbade any one to cut timber from common ground except where 
assigned by the magistrate, and appointed two men to search the woods 
for timber that had been cut but not crosscut nor squared, and authorized 
them to seize the same, one-half for themselves and one-half for the town. 
In 1640 the General Court imposed a fine of twenty shillings for each 
offense of cutting a tree where spruce masts grew. In 1642 the General 
Court declared that whoever should without leave cut a tree standing on 
any common within two miles of any part of the town, should lose the tree 
and his labor and suffer a fine of one shilling ; and if he should carry away 
the tree or a part of it he should pay such further damage as the Court 
should judge proper. An order of February 24, 1644, was directed toward 
an enforcement of the order of 1642; and one of June 16, 1645, appointed 
men who should supervise the getting of bark for tanning purposes, to the 
end that damage to the forests should be prevented as much as possible. 

The revised New Haven laws of 1644-45 repealed the order of 1640 
imposing a fine of twenty shillings for cutting a tree where spruce masts 



n 



Forest Legislation in America Prior to March 4, 1789 375 

grew; but on January 31, 1647, the General Court ordered that no man 
should fell any tree within the common of the town of New Haven, without 
leave from some magistrate, and that even then he should have the wood 
only for his particular trade or necessary use. This order also provided 
that if timber thus cut down were left unused for more than fourteen days, 
it should be forfeited to the use of any one whom the magistrate might 
give leave to take it. 

THE SETTLEMENTS ON THE CONNECTICUT RIVER 

On September 10, 1640, in the fourth year of the settlement at Hart- 
ford, Connecticut, the General Court forbade the felling of timber on the 
commons without a license from the particular court having jurisdiction, 
and prohibited the selling of pipestaves for exportation to foreign markets 
unless the same were viewed and approved by a committee to be appointed 
by the court. On September 9, 1641, the previous order was modified 
so as to permit the felling of timber on the commons, except within three 
miles of the mouth of the Matabezeke River, provided the timber was 
felled between the end of September and the beginning of April, worked 
up within one month after felling, and transported out of the colony only 
in exchange for necessary provisions brought in. These requirements 
were reenacted in the Code of Laws promulgated in 1650. 

UNITED CONNECTICUT UNDER THE CHARTER OF 1662 

A Court of Election held at Hartford, Connecticut, on May 12, 1687, 
forbade the transportation of timber out of any township of the colony 
without the consent of the town, under penalty of the forfeiture of the 
timber, and decreed that the master of any vessel who should receive on 
board any timber without the required license should forfeit forty shil- 
lings for every breach of the order. This order was not to apply to saw- 
mills erected with the consent of the General Court. The same order 
provided a forfeit of five shillings for every tree that should be cut on the 
common by a tanner for the bark, without license first obtained from the 
town. On October 12, 1699, the General Assembly at Hartford enacted 
a law similar in its prohibitions and penalties to the order of May 12, 
1687, but requiring that a license for exportation must be "in writing 
imder the hands of the major part of the selectmen of the town." 

At a general assembly begun at Hartford on May 8, 17 18, it was enacted 
that any one who should cut any tree " on the land which appears to be the 
property of any other person or persons, and hath been formerly bounded 
out, and the lines between comer and corner marked out or renewed within 
four years next before the felling of such tree, without leave first obtained 
from such owner or owners, under his or their hands," should pay to the 



376 Bulletin 370 

owner "for each tree or stadle under one foot over at the stub, five shil- 
lings; for each tree which is one foot and under two foot, ten shillings; and 
for each tree two foot over or more at stub, twenty shillings, over and above 
the value of the trees so felled." Agreements of towns were specifically- 
saved from the prohibition of the act. 

In October, 1726, the Assembly forbade any person, after December 31, 
1726, to "cut, fell, destroy or carry away, any tree or trees, timber or un- 
derwood whatsoever, standing, lying or growing on the land of any other 
person or persons, or off or from any sequestered land for town commons, 
or any common or undivided lands in any town, without leave or license 

of the owner or owners of such lands, "on 

pain of a forfeit to the party injured of " twenty shillings for every tree of 
one foot over, and for all trees of greater dimensions three times the value 
thereof besides twenty shillings as aforesaid, and ten shillings for every 
tree or pole under the dimensions of one foot diameter." The inhabi- 
tants of the respective towns were entitled to the penalties if the tim- 
ber was cut from lands sequestered for town commons, and the propri- 
etors of the lands were entitled to those derived from cutting on " common 
and undivided lands." If the plaintiff merely made it appear to the 
Court highly probable that the defendant had committed the offense, 
the plaintiff should have judgment unless the defendant acquitted him- 
self under oath; in the latter case, the defendant should have judgment for 
double costs. The proprietors of undivided lands and the inhabitants of 
towns holding sequestered commons could dispose of their timber as they 
saw fit, but only reasonable restrictions could be imposed as to the getting 
of firewood or fencing stuff for personal use by any inhabitant from a town 
common. Under the act an offender was liable for only the just value of 
the timber if he proved that he believed he was entitled to it at the time 
of cutting or taking. The act was limited to substantially two years. An 
act to explain a special exception in this act was passed in October, 1734. 
The Acts and Laws pubHshed at New London in 1750 reduced the pen- 
alties to five shillings for trees under one foot, ten shillings for those of one 
foot, and treble their value plus ten shilHngs for those of larger diameter. 

IN RHODE ISLAND 
THE PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS 

An order of February 28, 1638, in the Providence Plantations, which had 
been founded in 1636, required that two men should view the timber on the 
common and determine what was best suited for the use of each person. 
This order provided for a forfeiture to the town of timber that any one should 
permit to lie on the ground for more than one year after felling. Orders 
of November 27, 1650, and December 11, 1666, imposed fines for the 



Forest Leiuslation in America Prior to March 4, 1789 377 

takinj^^ of timber from the commons without the consent of the town, and 
one of 165 1 forbade the cutting of timber on the common purposely for 
goats. 

THE NEWPORT SETTLEMENT 

A court held at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1639, expressly forbade two 
parties who were engaged in sawing lumber from exporting any timber 
from the town of Newport without license from the authorities. 

THE PORTSMOUTH SETTLEMENT 

In 1640, at a public meeting at Portsmouth, liberty was granted for 
the exportation of a shipload of pipestaves, clapboards, and other articles, 
under the direction of the town. 

THE UNITED SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND 

An order of May, 1647, applicable to the settlements of Providence, 
Newport, Portsmouth, and Warwick, imposed treble damages and costs, 
or servitude in the house of correction, for the offense of trespassing on 
timber. 

On February 6, 17 10, the authorities of the Rhode Island and Providence 
Plantations forbade the cutting down or carrying away of cedar, pine, or 
other timber from the commons without a proper grant from the propri- 
etors of the Plantations, and in 1 7 14 a fine of five shilhngs was imposed for 
every tree or pole cut from the land of another without the owner's per- 
mission. 

An act directed against ]3ersons who cut timl^er from the lands of others 
without leave, was passed at a session of the General Assembly of Rhode 
Island and Providence Plantations beginning on February 14, 1743. This 
act imposed a fine of twenty shillings plus treble its value for every tree 
one foot or over, ten shillings for every tree under one foot, and for other 
wood or underwood treble its value. The second section of the act placed 
the burden of proof on the defendant after the plaintiff had taken oath 
that the trees were cut or destroyed as mentioned in the writ by number, 
and that he suspected the defendant and the circumstances supported 
this view. However, if the defendant acquitted himself the plaintiff was 
to pay double costs. 

IN NEW YORK 

In New York an act of May 16, 1699, aimed to prevent timber tres- 
pass on the commons and on private property. This act fixed penalties 
for the unlawful cutting of timber, of twenty shillings for every tree one 
foot or over in diameter, six shillings for every tree or pole under that 
size, " and for other wood or underwood the value thereof," to the party 
injured. The act provided further that if an offender were convicted a 



378 Bulletin 370 

second time he should, in addition to the above forfeitures and damaj^^e 
to the i^arty injured, forfeit to the town in which the offense was committed 
the sum of forty shilHngs, or suffer one month imprisonment. The city 
and county of Albany and the county of Ulster were exempted from the 
provisions of this act, but an act of December 24, 1759, extended the 
limitations of the fonner act to Ulster County. 

The first legislative recognition in America of the principle of timber 
conservation through the imposition of a diameter limit for cutting, except 
the acts that were enforced l:)y the requirements of the parliamentary act 
directed at the maintenance of a supply of mast timber, was by an act 
passed at Alban}- on March 24, 1772. This act forbade any person or 
persons whatsoever, either by themselves, their servants, or their slaves, 
to bring into the city of Albany or into a specified part of the Manor of 

Rensselaerwyck, "any Wood to be used as firewood, either 

for sale or otherwise, under the Diameter of six Inches if such Wood be 
of the Pine kind, and four Inches Diameter if of any other kind of Wood 
at the Stump end on Penalty of forfeiting and paying the Sum of Six 
Shillings for every Load of Wood which shall contain more than six Sticks 
or Pieces of Wood under the size aforesaid," the penalties to be used for 
public purposes of the city and county of Albany. 

IN NEW JERSEY 

On June 23, 1666, at Elizabeth Town, in the newly established pro- 
prietary of New Jersey, it was decreed by Governor Philip Carteret and 
his Council that no one should cut any timber trees useful for building, 
fences, or the making of pipestaves, on an}^ lands not their own, nor within 
three miles of any home lot belonging to the town, without license from 
the Governor or the owners of the land, under penalty of forfeiting five 
pounds sterling for every tree so felled. 

A General Assembly at Elizabethtown on October 21, 1678, imposed a 
penalty of five pounds for ever>^ tree cut from unpatented lands, one-third 
of the fine to go to the informer and two-thirds to the public treasury. 

At the first session of the General Assembly for West Jersey, convened 
on November 9, 1 681, it was enacted that no one should fell or carry away 
timber from any land surveyed within the province, without leave of the 
owner, under pain of treble damages. 

At a council held at Elizabethtown in East Jersey on December i, 1683, a 
resolution was adopted reciting that much timber trespass and waste was 
being committed, and authorizing the Governor to issue a proclamation 
and enforce the law against timber trespass. 

A council held at Burlington, New Jersey, in February, 17 10, considered 
a bill entitled "An Act for preventing the Waste of Timber and Pine 



Forest Legislation in America Prior to March 4, 1789 379 

Trees, Poles and Pine Knots within this province of New Jersey." This 
bill did not become a law, but a similar one including cedar trees became 
a law on March 11, 17 14. This act recited that there had been great 
waste through the cutting and carrying away of timber, the boring of trees, 
and the extracting of turpentine, both on the lands of the proprietors 
and of others, and expressed the belief that the exportation of pipe and 
hogshead staves to neighboring provinces would both destroy the timber 
and discourage trade. The act accordingly imposed penalties of twenty 
shillings for each tree cut, bored, or boxed on the land of another, and 
ten shillings for every pine or cedar pole cut. Cutting on the commons 
was excepted from the penalties. 

The penalties of the act of March 11, 17 14, did not prove sufficient to 
prevent timber trespass, and in 1759 it was enacted that any person who 
should cut, box, bore, or destroy any tree, sapling, or pole, on lands to 
which he did not have right or title, should forfeit twenty shillings in ad- 
dition to the penalties inflicted by the act of 1713-14. The operation of 
this additional penalty was limited to five years. There appear to have 
been other temporary acts imposing additional penalties, and on De- 
cember 21, 1 7 7 1 , not only was the additional penalty of twenty shillings 
imposed, but the time within which prosecution might be brought was ex- 
tended from the six months named in the act of 17 13-14 to eighteen 
months. The act of 1771 was limited to seven years. 

On March 18, 1780, the Council and General Assembly of the newly 
organized State of New Jersey passed an act \vhich recited that the act 
of 1 7 13-14 and the acts supplementary thereto had by experiences been 
found beneficial to the interests of the State, but that the penalties therein 
had of late proved insufficient; and, since. the supplementary acts had ex- 
pired by limitation, it was enacted that for each tree, sapling, or pole 
cut, felled, worked up, carried away, boxed, bored, or destroyed on any land 
within the State, without pennission, by any person who had no right 
or title thereto, a penalty of fifty pounds should be paid. Section 2 
provided that judgment and execution should be given even though the 
defendant claimed the land, unless he gave bond in the sum of one thousand 
pounds for appearance in an action of trespass. Eighteen months were 
allowed for the bringing of actions, and the act of March 11, 17 14, was 
repealed. This later act appears to have overshot the mark in the 
matter of penalty and bond, for on June 13, 1783, an act was passed which 
fixed the penalty for the same offenses as those mentioned in the act of 
1780 at three pounds for each tree, sapling, or pole, allowed eighteen months 
for prosecution, and fixed the bond in cases in which the defendant claimed 
the land at double the amount of the claim. Section 2 made subject to 
the penalty of the act any one who should saw a log which he knew to 



380 Bulletin 370 

have been stolen. The cutting of trees for the repair of a highway was 
specially excepted from the prohibition of the act, and the act of 17 13-14 
was again repealed. 

IN PENNSYLVANIA 

Prior to establishing a colony in the vast proprietary domain that had 
received the name Penns Woods because of the magnificent forests which 
were known to lie within it, William Penn published in England a funda- 
mental document, of which section 11 declared that all deeds should in- 
clude all woods and underwoods, and section 18 provided that care must 
be taken to leave one acre of trees for every five acres cleared, and especially 
to preserve oak and mulberry for silk and shipping. 

In the first Assembly, on March 30, 1683, a resolution forbidding any 
one to fell the trees of another person was adopted, and at a session begun 
at Newcastle on October 14, 1700, a forfeit of five pounds to the owner was 
prescribed for the cutting of a black walnut tree, one of fifty shillings for 
any other timber tree, and double its value for firewood or underwood. 
On March 17, 1780, trespassers on timber were made liable to fine and 
imprisonment in addition to the payment of treble damages to the owner 
of the land, whether the owner was a private party or the commonwealth. 

IN DELAWARE 

In Delaware an act of 1741 declared that any one cutting down any 
"timber tree or trees" on the lands of another should pay the injured 
party fifty shillings and costs. For failure to pay this penalty the offender 
could be required to make satisfaction by servitude for a period not ex- 
ceeding four years. A timber tree was defined as a tree one foot or over 
in diameter two feet from the ground. The cutting of " firewood or under- 
wood" must be satisfied by ti'cble damages and costs, or by servitude. 
This act repealed one previously in force. It will be remembered that 
Delaware had been governed by. the laws of Pennsylvania prior to 1702, 
and that those laws were effective in Delaware until they were repealed. 

IN MARYLAND 

A Maryland act of June 2, 1692, granting certain free use of timber to 
any one who should build a mill, excepted timber fit to "split or cleave 
into clapboards." An act of September 21, 1704, declared that grantees 
of land lying within the land of the Indians should have an action of tres- 
pass against any one who should cut timber therefrom under pretence of 
having bought it from the Indians. An act of 1724, authorizing the free 
use of timber for repair of highways, excepted trees fit for clapboards or 
coopers' timber. 



,y^f 



REGULATION OF THE LUMBER AND TIMBER INDUSTRY 

The extent to which the authorities exercised control over manufac- 
ture and trade in lumber in the colonial period presents a striking contrast 
to the laissez /aire policy of the nineteenth century. 

STATUTORY PRICES FOR LUMBER AND TIMBER PRODUCTS 

On September 27, 1 63 1 , the Court of Assistants at Boston ordered that 
sawyers should not take over twelve pence a score for sawing boards if the 
wood were felled and squared for them, and not over seven shillings per 
hundred if they felled and squared the timber themselves. 

At Newport, Rhode Island, in 1639, Ralph Earle and his copartner, Mr. 
Willbore, were required to furnish the town with sawed boards at eight 
shillings per hundred and with half-inch boards at seven shillings per 
hundred, delivered by the pit at the waterside; and with clapboards at 
twelve pence a foot. 

On June 7, 1641, the General Court at Hartford, Connecticut, ordered 
that sawyers should not take over four shillings and two pence for slit 
work on three-inch planks, or over three shillings and six pence for 
boards by the hundred; and that boards should be sold for not over five 
shillings and six pence per hundred. 

In 1669 the Court of Plymouth declared that no boards should be 
brought into the colony or sold at a price above forty-five shillings per 
thousand at the waterside where sawed, under a fine of ten shillings 
per thousand. 

REGULATION OF THE SALE OF FIREWOOD 

The standard cord of firewood — 8 feet long, 4 feet broad, and 4 feet 
high — was established by law in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1647, 
in New York in 1684, in Rhode Island in 1698, in South Carolina in 1738, 
in Delaware in 1741, in Georgia in 1766, and in North Carolina in 1784; 
and provision for official wood-corders was made in Massachusetts in 
1655, in Rhode Lsland in 1698, and in New Hampshire in 1714. There 
was subsequent legislation on the same subject in practically all of these 
colonies. 

INSPECTION OF TIMBER PRODUCTS, AND EXPORT DUTIES THEREON 

IN MASSACHUSETTS 
THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY 

An order of 1641 prescribed the length and quality of pipestaves that 
were to be offered for exportation from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. 
This order did not prove sufficient, and on November 4, 1646, the General 

381 



382 Bulletin 370 

Court, after reciting tiie evils to foreign trade which wotild result from the 
exportation of pipestaves of poor quality, especially on account of worm- 
holes, ordered that the selectmen of Boston, Charlestown, and all other 
towns from which pipestaves were shipped, should from time to time, 
as should be necessary, choose viewers who should be sworn to faithfully 
inspect all pipestaves intended for exportation to Spain or Portugal, or to 
the dominions of either nation. All material that did not, in the opinion 
of the viewers, conform to the standards required by the trade, was to 
be forfeited. Any master or officer of a ship who should receive material 
in evasion of the order was liable to a forfeit of five pounds sterling for 
every thousand staves so received. A supplementary act of May 19, 
1669, specified more particularly the sizes and qualities required for white 
oak and red oak staves. 

On June 2, 1653, the General Court granted a request of Boston and 
Charlestown that selectmen in those towns be permitted to appoint 
persons to measure lumber, and an act of May 23, 1655, authorized the 
selectmen of Boston, Charlestown, Salem, and such other towns as 
should think fit, to appoint persons who should be sworn to faithfully 
and uprightly measure wood and boards, and no one was to be required 
to receive such articles until measured by these officials. 

THE PROVINCE OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY 

A Massachusetts act of June 18, 1695, provided that any purchaser of 
shingles might apply to a justice of the peace, who should thereupon 
appoint some able house carpenter, who should under oath view the 
shingles and seize, for the benefit of the poor of the town, bundles con- 
taining shingles that did not conform to the standard sizes of 15 or 18 
inches long, 3I inches wide, and ^ inch thick, or that were not well shaved. 
An act of June 21, 17 10, provided for the annual election, in every 
town of the province where boards, plank, timber, or slit work were 
imported or exported, of two or more surveyors, who were to receive 
fees for inspecting timber products. Cull material was to be burned 
or forfeited for the poor. 

On June 23, 1727, the General Court said there had been abuses of the 
former acts, provided in greater detail for inspection, and required that 
the brand of the town where they were inspected should be placed on 
every bundle of shingles or clapboards. No shingle was to be under 
3 inches wide, and the average was to be 4I inches. The shingles were 
to be either 15 or 18 inches long, "as sold for," | inch thick at the butt, 
and well shaved so as to be free from winding. Clapboards exposed for 
sale must be of sound timber, f of an inch thick, 5 inches wide, 4 feet 
6 inches long, 5?traight, and well shaved. The surveyors were to be ap- 



Forest Legislation in America Prior to March 4, 1789 383 

pointed annually by the justices of the peace and were subject to a fine 
for refusal to serve. The act was to be effective for a period of four 
years, beginning January i, 1728, but an act passed on January 4, 1738, 
was substantially the same as that of June 23, 1727, and another of the 
same day regulated the quality and sizes of pipe, barrel, and hogshead 
staves. Both the latter acts were limited to five years. 

An act of March 22, 1743, which declared the act of June 21, 17 10, 
deficient in that it did not provide for the measurement of lumber at the 
place where it was received but only at the place whence it was shipped, 
made provision for the election at annual town meetings of a surveyor 
in every town where lumber was rafted off or bought. This law con- 
tained detailed directions and specifications for the inspection of shingles, 
hoops, staves, limiber, and the like. It was limited to expire on June 10, 
1747, but was followed by other acts which revived and supplemented 
its provisions. 

UNDER THE CONFEDERATION 

The successful close of the Revolution gave new life to trade, and 
by an act of July 11, 1783, Massachusetts attempted to insure the building 
of a substantial commerce in timber products with the outside world. 
This required the election of surveyors in every town at the annual meet- 
ings, prescribed specifications for various timber products, provided for 
fees to surveyors and for certificates of inspection, imposed penalties 
for evasion, and repealed all former inspection acts. A supplemental 
act of March 16, 1784, extended the restrictions of the act of July 11, 
1 783, to all ports not within the State of Massachusetts, imposed additional 
penalties on the master or owner of any vessel who should attempt to evade 
the law, and declared that fully seasoned boards | inch thick should be 
considered merchantable. This was during the period of rivalry and 
retaliation between the confederated States as to trade, and it is probable 
that the purposes of the act of July 11, 1783, had been evaded by the ex- 
portation of timber products to foreign countries through the ports of other 
States. 

IN NEW HAMPSHIRE 

On October 4, 1683, it was ordered in New Hampshire that thence- 
forth no pine boards should be accounted merchantable or delivered in 
payment unless they were a full inch in thickness and square-edged; 
and that if any boards were exported which did not comply with these 
requirements, such allowance should be made to the buyer or receiver as 
should be adjudged reasonable by a sworn surveyor appointed for that 
purpose. The preamble to this enactment indicates that it was directed 
largely toward the maintenance of a lumber trade with the West Indies, 



384 Bulletin 370 

from which place complaint had come as to the thinness and wany edger. 
of New Hampshire lumber. An order of October 22, 1683, forbidding 
vessels of over one hundred tons burden of the Massachusetts or Plym- 
outh Colonies from loading any boards or timber at New Hampshire 
ports, except under license from the New Hampshire Governor, aimed 
to protect home shipping. 

On August 10, 1687, standard specifications for staves and boards were 
fixed and provision was made for official cullers; and in 1704 it was enacted 
that any one purchasing lumber should have the right to measure it in 
the presence of a selectman, constable, or other officer, and such as did not 
conform to its marks was to be forfeited. On June 21, 1785, a very 
complete lumber inspection act was passed. This act, which was un- 
limited as to duration, covered boards, shingles, clapboards, hoops, staves, 
heading, and shooks, and repealed all previous acts. 

IN CONNECTICUT 

THE SETTLEMENTS ON THE CONNECTICUT RIVER 

An order of September 10, 1640, passed by the General Court at Hart- 
ford, Connecticut, forbade the exportation of pipestaves to foreign markets 
unless they were first viewed by a committee appointed by the Court 
and approved both as to quality of timber and as to size; and an order of 
September 9, 1641, restricting the felling and exportation of timber, fixed 
a standard size for pipestaves and provided for inspection. 

UNITED CONNECTICUT UNDER THE CHARTER OF 1662 

A Connecticut act of August lo, 1667, provided for inspection of timber 
products in every seaport town by sworn officials who were empowered 
" to cast by all such staves as they judge not to be merchantable either 
in respect of wormholes or want of assize." All pine, spruce, or cedar 
boards offered for exportation must be either one full inch or one-half 
inch thick. 

An act of May 13, 17 14, which declared one of its objects to be the 
prevention of the destruction of timber, but which in reality appears to 
have aimed chiefly at a discrimination in favor of British and Connecticut 
shipping interests employed in transporting goods to the West India 
Islands, imposed a duty on all pipe, barrel, and hogshead staves shipped 
from Connecticut to Massachusetts Bay, New York, the New Jerseys, 
Rhode Island, or New Hampshire. On May 12, 1715, a duty was laid 
on ship timber, plank, and boards exported to any of the colonies named 
in the act of May 13, 17 14. The main object of this law appears to have 
been encouragement to Connecticut shi])building. A similar act passed 



Forest Legislation in America Prior to March 4, 1789 385 

in May, 1747, levied export duties on staves, heading, ship timber, plank, 
boards, and bark destined to any of the colonies named in the act of 17 14 
except the New Jerseys. This act appears to have remained in force 
until 1786, when its provisions were included in the revised laws pub- 
lished in that year. The revised laws of 1786 also contained full pro- 
visions for the inspection of timber products offered for export. 

IN RHODE ISLAND 

A Rhode Island act of 1731 provided that in each town where boards, 
planks, shingles, clapboards, and slit work were usually imported or 
exported, there should be two or more surveyors elected annually at 
town meetings. The surveyors were required to give due consideration 
to drying and shrinking, and to make reasonable allowance for rots, 
splits, and wains. The sizes of shingles and the fees to be allowed were 
specified. 

IN NEW YORK 

No legislative control of timber inspection was exercised in New York 
until March i, 1788. Under the law then enacted, the Governor and 
Council were to appoint an inspector for the city and county of New 
York, who was to appoint deputies for Albany, Hudson, Kinderhook, 
and other places where necessary. Sizes and quality were fixed for boards 
and shingles, and the inspector was required to mark his initials or his 
full surname, and the quantity, on each piece or bundle inspected. The 
inspection of staves was provided for in an act of March 7, 1788. 

IN NEW JERSEY 

A New Jersey law of October 2, 1694, required that before any timber, 
planks, boards, oak bolts, staves, heading, hoops, or hop poles were loaded 
in any port of that province, the master of the vessel must have a permit 
from the customhouse at Perth-Amboy and must have given a well- 
secured bond, in the sum of one hundred pounds penalty, guaranteeing 
that the goods would be unloaded only in the Kingdom of England, the 
West Indies, or one of the Stunmer, or Wine, Islands. Firewood and 
cedar shingles were specifically excepted from the restrictions of the 
act. Chapter 12 of the laws of the same session required the Governor 
to appoint an official in every town to enforce the act. 

A timber trespass act of March 11, 17 14, imposed duties on pipe or 
hogshead staves shipped to any of the British colonies on the American 
continent, but the duty on hogshead staves was removed on January 25, 
1717. An act of December 2, 1743, imposed duties on all logs or timber 
products, except firewood, exported from eastern New Jersey to any 
of the colonies on the American continent. The penalties for violation 



386 Bulletin 370 

were very severe. "The portion of this act forbidding the exportation of 
timber from Essex County was repealed on February 18, 1748, but the 
export duties were retained until the Revolution. 

On September 26, 1772, inspection of timber products of all classes was 
provided for. Under this act, which became effective on January i, 1773, 
and was limited' to seven years, lumber shipped to neighboring colonies 
was not required to be inspected-^ nor was that shipped to foreign markets, 
if neither the buyer nor the seller required inspection. 

IN PENNSYLVANIA. 

The first Assembly of Pennsylvania adopted on March 13, 1683, a 
resolution in regard to pipestaves, and section 5 of chapter 80 of the laws 
of 1700 fixed specifications for barrel and hogshead staves. 

On April 21, 1759, the General Assembly of Pennsylvania undertook 
to prevent the exportation of unmerchantable staves,, heading, boards, 
and timber by estabHshing specifications and providing for inspection 
along substantially the same lines as obtained in the New England 
colonies. Supplementary and amendatory acts were passed in 1761 and 
in 1767. The act of 1759 as thus amended appears to have remained the 
law until September 29, 1789. 

IN VIRGINIA 

In a letter of March 28, ,1628, to the King, the General Assembly of 
Virginia advised him that pipestaves, barrel boards, and clapboards 
could be procured in great abundance, but that the freight was too high 
to make it an object to export them. 

Not until more than a century later was the necessity of timber in- 
spection recognized by the Virginia Legislature. In 1752 the dimensions 
and quality of staves, heading, and shingles intended for exportation to 
Madeira or the West Indies were fixed by a law which was limited in 
operation to a period of two years. 

In 1786 lumber inspection wag provided for the counties of Norfolk 
and Princess Anne and the borough of Norfolk; and on December 13, 
1787, the provisions of the act of 1786 were extended to all counties and 
corporations of the commonwealth. 

IN NORTH CAROLINA 

An act of the Assembly, begun at Newbern, North Carolina, on Decem- 
ber 5, 1770, regulated in exceptional detail the exportation of fla'xseed, 
pork, beef, rice, flour, l)utter, tar, pitch, turi^entine, staves, heading, 
shingles, lumber, tanned leather, and deerskins. Inspectors were to be 
appointed by justices of inferior courts in each county, to be sworn and 



Forest Legislation in America Prior to March 4, 1789 3S7 

to give bonds. Section 27 of the act read: "Provided, nevertheless, 
That no vStaves, Heading, Shingles, Boards, Plank, square Timber, or 
Deer-Skins shall be inspected, unless required"; and section 28 provided 
that if " dispute arose between seller and purchaser of any Boards, Plank, 
or other Lumber intended for the English market, the Inspector shall 
inspect the same, agreeable to the English Act of Parliament, if called 
on for this purpose." So important was the office considered that in- 
spectors were ineligible to membershi]j in the colonial legislature. The 
operation of this act was limited to ten years. After its expiration, how- 
ever, the need of such a law was felt, and chapter 26 of the laws of 1784 
made complete provision for the inspection of timber products offered 
for exportation. 

IN SOUTH CAROLINA 

On March 25, 1738, the Provincial Legislature passed a general act 
to prevent frauds in the selling of various staples, including shingles 
and firewood. This was followed on June 17, 1746, by a very compre- 
hensive act on the same subject. The latter act, which was limited to 
three years, was allowed to lapse, but on March 12, 1783, its provisions 
were revived and were continued without limitation as to time of operation. 



BRITISH LEGISLATION DIRECTED TOWARD THE CONTROL OF 
FOREST INDUSTRIES IN THE COLONIES 

Within two decades after the founding of the first permanent British 
colony in North America, the Crown manifested an interest in the pro- 
duction of naval stores in the New World; and in a letter dated March 28, 
1628, the General Assembly at Jamestown, Virginia, advised the King 
that, although there were great possibilities for the production of pitch 
and tar in the new country, the industry could not be profitably undertaken 
at that time. 

On November 15, 1644, the General Court at Hartford, Connecticut, 
granted to two men the privilege of making tar in the colony under certain 
restrictions. On October 21, 1653, complaint was made to the Court 
of the inconveniences which had been suffered by some of the inhab- 
itants of Windsor because of the burning of tar near the town. In 1663 
John Griffin was granted two hundred acres of land for making it appear 
that he was the first to make pitch or tar in Connecticut. 

An act of June, 1661, in the Plymouth Colony, fixed an export duty 
of six pence per barrel on tar made within the lands of any township, 
and twe've pence per barrel for any tar gathered on the " Countryes 
Comons," with a penalty of four shillings a barrel for evasion of the act. 
An order of 1668 forbidding the making of tar in Plymouth Colony was 
repealed on June 6, 1669; and one of 1670 providing for the granting 
of a monopoly for the purchase of all tar made in the colony during a 
period of two years, to any one who should agree to pay eight shillings 
a barrel and twelve shillings for each half hogshead, was repealed on 
Jime 9, 167 1. 

An act of June 8, 167 1, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, granted 
to a company a ten- years monopoly of the right to make for sale " pitch, 
rozin, turpentine, oyle of turpentine or masticke of the pine or cedar trees 
of this jurisdiction." The company was required to pay six pence per 
hundredweight for pitch and rosin made from timber on the commons. 

In furtherance of a policy of increasing the production of naval stores, 
between 1664 and 1669 the duties on pitch and tar produced in Virginia 
and Maryland and imported into England were remitted. 

The several charters and grants of lands in the New World issued 
to companies and individuals by James I, Charles I, and Charles II, 
of England, each included a full title to all trees found growing thereon, 
and a thriving foreign trade in shipbuilding materials and other timber 
products ultimately developed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (to 
which Charles I granted a charter in 1629) and in the other New England 
colonies. 

Under the beneficent guidance of Oliver Cromwell a new spirit of 

389 



390 Bulletin 370 

maritime cntcrpri'^e developed in the British nation in the decade beginning 
with 1650. Vie\ving with jealous eyes the trade expansion of the Dutch 
Netherlands, the English Parliament, in 165 1, passed a Navigation Act 
which permitted the importation and exportation of goods into or from 
England or her colonies in English ships only, except in ships of the country 
from which the goods came or to which they went. This legislation 
probably contributed in part to the building up of a national merchant 
marine which was vigorously supported by an effective navy. However, 
merchant vessels of the Dutch and other nations continued to hold a 
large part of the commerce of the English colonies in North America with 
the West Indies and with the Continent of Europe. 

Accordingly, in the first year of the Restoration, Parliament drew the 
line closer by enacting that from and after December i, 1660, no goods 
should be imported into or exported from any of the British colonies in 
America except in vessels which belonged to Great Britain or to the said 
British colonies and of which the master and at least three-fourths of the 
mariners were English. Three years later a supplementary^ act required 
that after March 20, 1664, all goods destined for the English colonies 
in America must be laden and shipped in England, Wales, or Berwick 
upon Tweed, and in English vessels. This was followed by other restrictive 
acts, such as that which required the governors of colonies to report each 
year the number of ships laden out of the territory under their jurisdiction, 
and that of 1672 requiring that goods imported into England in colonial 
vessels must pay duty and that ships loading in* any of His Majesty's 
plantations after September i, 1673, must give bond to bring the cargo 
to England, Wales, or the town of Berwick upon Tweed. 

With the expansion of the navy and the merchant marine of Great 
Britain during the Commonwealth and the early years of the Restoration, 
came a demand for shipbuilding materials which the European sources 
of supply could meet only at an increased price. Furthermore, a reliance 
on foreign sources for the commodities most essential to naval supremacy 
was a direct invitation to disaster. The accession of William of Orange 
to the British throne in 1688, after the depressive reigns of Charles H and 
James II, marked the rise of a new national hope and ambition in England. 
In 1684, by direction of James II, the charter of the Massachusetts Bay 
Colony had been vacated on a writ of quo warranto. 

On October 7, 1691, William and Mary consolidated into a single royal 
province "the territories and colonies commonly called or known by 
the names of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay and Colony of New 
Plymouth, the province of Maine, the territory called Acadia or Nova 
Scotia, and all that tract of land lying between the said territories of 
Nova Scotia and the said province of Maine," and issued a new charter 



Forest Legislation in America Prior to March 4, 1789 391 

for the combined colonies under the title The Province of Massachusetts 
Bay in New England. 

Although the charter of 1691 granted to the new province much of 
the freedom enjoyed by the Massachusetts Bay Colony under the char- 
ter of 1629, it contained one important reservation. This reservation 
clause declared that for the better providing and furnishing of masts for 
the royal navy, the grantors reserved to themselves, their heirs, and 
successors, all trees of the diameter of twenty-four inches and upward 
twelve inches from the grotind, growing on any land within the province 
not theretofore granted to a private person. The reservation further 
forbade any one to cut or destroy such trees without a royal license first 
obtained, under penalty of one hundred poimds sterling. When one 
reflects that this charter granted to the inhabitants of the province four- 
fifths of all gold, silver, or other minerals in the lands, one begins to 
realize the significance of this reservation of timber. 

Notwithstanding the reservation of pine trees in the charter of 1691, 
and the restrictions of the navigation acts, the cutting of pine and its 
exportation continued, in response to a strong demand for timber prod- 
ucts from foreign nations as well as England; and when it became 
increasingly difficult to obtain shipbuilding material of first quality at the 
ports of New England, the British Crown took active steps to prevent the 
unnecessary destruction of trees smtable for masts. 

The pressure brought to bear on the colonies by the Crown is shown 
in the order of the Governor and Council of New Hampshire in 1683, 
forbidding vessels of Massachusetts, evading the navigation acts, from 
loading at New Hampshire ports; in the New Jersey act of 1694, requiring 
the masters of vessels loading at ports of that province to give bond 
for the transportation of their cargoes to England, the West Indies, or 
the Slimmer, or Wine, Islands; and in a Massachusetts act of 1694-95, 
which declared that the King had signified his desire that a trial be made 
of producing naval stores in that province, and forbade any one to trans- 
port any pitch, tar, rosin, plank, or ship timber out of the province without 
special license from the Governor and Council 

In 1696 King William III created a commission known as the Lords 
of Trade, to whom was assigned the duty of improving conditions in the 
British plantations in America. This commission undertook to develop 
the naval store industry in the colonies, and Lord Bellomont, who was 
sent to America as Governor of Massachusetts Bay, New York, and New 
Hampshire, exhibited a special interest in the project from his arrival 
in New York on April 2, 1698, until his death in the same city on March 

The rising prices of naval stores in Europe, together with the realization 



392 Bulletin 370 

of national needs which came in the conflicts of King William III with 
Louis XIV of France in the last decade of the seventeenth century, were 
accentuated when war between England and France began again in 
1702 after a peace of only five years. This war, known as the War of the 
Spanish Succession, involved all of western Europe and forced upon 
British statesmen a consideration of every plausible means of increasing 
the naval independence of the nation. 

With a view to establishing a permanent source of naval stores within 
its own dominions, the British Parliament in 1704 passed an act which 
placed bounties on tar, pitch, rosin, turpentine, hemp, masts, yards, 
and bowsprits imported from the American colonies into Great Britain. 
For the preservation of trees fit for the production of naval stores, this 
act imposed a fine of five pounds for the offense of cutting or destroying 
a pitch pine tree or a tar tree, under twelve inches in diameter three 
feet from the ground, not within a fence or an actual inclosure, within 
the colonies of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, 
Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey; and fixed a fine of ten pounds 
for the offense of wittingly or willingly firing any woods or forest in which 
there were trees prepared for the making of pitch or tar, without first 
giving notice to the person who had prepared the trees for the making of 
pitch or tar, in any of the said colonies. The act became effective on 
January i, 1705, and was limited to nine years. 

In order to insure a proper execution of this act, John Bridger, who 
had been engaged in the development of the naval store industry as a 
government agent since 1698, was commissioned Surveyor General of 
the Woods, and was required to instruct the inhabitants in the making of 
pitch and tar and other products, and to mark with the broad arrow 
of the British navy all trees that were to be reserved for the Crown 
and to keep a register of them. Bridger encountered much opposition 
from the colonists, who evidently considered the restrictions imposed by 
Parliament to be inimical to their own interests. The differences 
between the representative of the Crown and those who desired to 
exploit the forests for private gain were especially pronounced in New 
Hampshire, and an act passed in this royal province in 1708 imposed a 
penalty of one hundred pounds for every white pine or mast tree twenty- 
four inches or upward in diameter twelve inches from the ground, 
not private property, which should be cut or destroyed without royal 
license. The same penalty was prescribed for the unauthorized marking 
of any tree with the broad arrow. 

Section 30 of a general fiscal act of 1709 declared that the premiums 
allowed by the act of 1704 for the importation of naval stores from the 
plantations in America were defective, and authorized Queen Anne to 



Forest Legislation in America Prior to March 4, 1789 393 

expend ten thousand pounds for the subsistence and employment of persons 
and the purchase of materials, with a view to effecting the purposes of 
the earlier act. 

In an act of 17 10 the British Parliament referred to the vast quantities 
of masts and timber available near the shore in New England, New York, 
and New Jersey, and declared that after September 24, 17 11, no person 
within New England, New York, or New Jersey should cut or destroy 
any white pine tree fit for masts that was twenty-four inches or upward 
in diameter twelve inches from the ground, and was not private property, 
under penalty of one hundred pounds. A penalty of five pounds was 
fixed for the offense of unlawfully marking a pine tree, in any of the 
colonies named, with the broad arrow of the navy. It appears from the 
language of the act that unscrupulous persons had been using the arrow 
in an unauthorized manner, to deter others from cutting trees on common 
lands and thus gain advantage to themselves. 

In 1 7 13 the act of 1704 was continued for a period of eleven years. 

The influence of the royal authority on the legislative acts of the colonies 
is illustrated by a Massachusetts act passed on June 21, 17 15, imposing 
a penalty of twenty shillings for each tree cut, barked, or boxed for the 
making of turpentine on any lands of the province, proprietors, town- 
ships, or particular persons, and providing for the forfeiture of all turpen- 
tine made; by a New Hampshire act of 17 19, imposing a penalty of five 
pounds for the cutting of more than one box in a tree for the purpose of 
making turpentine, unless the trees were private property; and by an 
entry in the legislative records of New Jersey for November, 17 19, making 
reference to the provisions of sections 16 and 17 of a parliamentary act 
of 1 7 18, which forbade the payment of premiiuns except when the naval 
stores were of good quality, and prescribed an approved method of manu- 
facture. 

Section 2 of an act of 1721 sought to encourage the importation of 
lumber and all manner of timber products into Great Britain directly 
from the American colonies in British shipping, by removing all duties 
on such products thus imported for a period of twenty-one years from 
and after June 24, 1722. The act excepted masts, yards, and bowsprits, 
as to which provision had been made in an earlier act. Sections 3 and 4 
provided for premiiuns on pitch, tar, and other products along the same 
lines as the act of 1704 and that of 17 18; section 5 imposed new penalties 
for the offense of cutting or destroying trees fit for masts, not growing 
within the limits of any township, without the royal license ; and section 6 
repealed the part of the act of 17 10 which fixed a penalty of one 
hundred pounds for the cutting of a white pine mast tree twenty -four 
inches or upward in diameter. The new penalties for cutting white pine 



394 Bulletin 370 

mast trees or drawing them away, as established in section 5, were five 
pounds for trees twelve inches and under in diameter three feet from 
the ground, ten pounds for trees from twelve to eighteen inches in diameter, 
twenty pounds for trees from eighteen to twenty-four inches, and fifty 
pounds for trees twenty-four inches and upward. These penalties were 
applicable in Nova Scotia, as well as in all the colonies of New England, 
and in New York and New Jersey. 

The opposition of the colonies to the navigation acts and the acts 
placing restrictions on the cutting of pine was neither appeased by the 
free trade provisions nor subdued by the penalties of the act of 1721, 
and the matter again claimed the attention of the British Parliament. 
An act of 1729 recited the prohibition against the cutting of white pine 
trees not growing within any township, contained in the act of 1721, 
declared that the said act had been evaded, through the laying out of 
large tracts into townships since its passage, and enacted that from and 
after September 29, 1729, no one should, without royal license, cut or 
destroy any white pine trees that were not private property, notwithstand- 
ing that the said trees grew within the limits of any township already laid 
out or to be laid out. This act extended the area covered by the act 
of 1 72 1 so as to include every province or country in America which 
belonged to Great Britain or should thereafter be acquired.^ 

Section 2 made the penalties of section 5 of the act of 1721 applicable 
to the cutting of white pine trees on lands not private property in any 
British territory of America, and to the cutting of white pine trees twenty- 
four inches or upward in diameter on any lands in the province of Massa- 
chusetts Bay that were not private property at the time of the reservation 
made in the charter issued by King William and Queen Mary in 1691. 

The premiums allowed by this act for naval stores imported into Great 
Britain from the American colonies were considerably lower than those 
allowed by the act of 1704, which had been extended in 17 13 but had 
expired in 1725. The requirements of the act of 17 18 as to the quality 
of naval stores were reenacted, and the special encouragement to the 
manufacture of tar by an approved method as set out in the act of 1721 
was continued. All naval stores shipped from the colonies were to be 
subject to the "regulations, restrictions and limitations " of the navigation 
acts requiring bond for shipment to Great Britain under penalties and 
forfeitures, and the premiimis were limited to a period of thirteen years. 
These premiimis were continued, however, by successive acts until June 
24, 1 781. 

The provision of the act of 1721 which admitted wood, timber, and 

* For colonial views of act see New Jersey Archives, First Series, Vol. H, p. 176, 179-183. For enforce- 
ment, see Colonial Records of Connecticut, Vol. VII (1726-173S), P- 264; Provincial Papers of New Hamp- 
shire, Vol. IV, p. 563, 565; Vol. V, p. II, 19, 97; Acts and Resolves, Province of Massachusetts Bay, Vol. 
Ill, p. 116, 326, 984; Vol. IV, p. 530, 974; Vol. V, p. 174- 



Forest Legislation in America Prior to March 4, 1789 395 

lumber products from the colonies into Great Britain free of duty was 
continued by successive acts until September 29, 1778. 

Although the terms of the earlier navigation acts requiring a shipment 
of all products of the colonies to Great Britain were evidently sufficiently 
broad to cover all kinds of timber or lumber products, through evasion 
and a loose construction of these acts the trade in such products between 
the colonies and foreign nations and their dependencies continued to thrive 
for a century following the Restoration. But there were frequent reports 
from the royal governors in America as to the great loss to British com- 
merce whidi resulted from such foreign trade, and strong protest in England 
against the continuance of this trade. At last Parliament took action. 
Section 28 of a general duty act of 1763 enacted that from and after 
September 29, 1764, none of the timber products specified in the second 
section of the act of 1 72 1 which had been grown, produced, or manufactured 
in any British colony of America were to be laden on any ship until bond 
was given to insure their transportation to no part of Europe except 
to ports of Great Britain, and section 29 required a warrant before such 
goods could be shipped to any other British colony or plantation. 

An act of 1765 marked the adoption of a new policy. This provided 
for the payment of premitims on deals, plank, boards, and timber imported 
directly from the colonies into Great Britain in British ships. These 
premiums were to be paid at certain rates for a period of three years 
beginning on January i, 1766, at lower rates for a second period of three 
years, and at still lower rates during a third period of three years. Section 
22 of this act authorized the shipment of timber products from the colonies 
direct to Ireland, the Madeiras, the Azores, and any part of Europe south 
of Cape Finis terre. 

An act of 1771 extended the provisions of the act of 1721 so that 
mahogany and every sort of unmanufactured timber product might be im- 
ported into Great Britain from any American colony, in British vessels, 
free of duty, and chapter 50 of the acts of the same year provided for 
bounties on white oak staves and heading imported into England 
direct from the colonies in British shipping. These two acts were doubt- 
less intended as a relief to manufacturers in Great Britain, rather than as 
an encouragement to the colonies. 

For a full century the colonies had chafed under the commercial re- 
pression of the navigation acts, and during three-fourths of that time 
the law had forbidden, under heavy penalties, the natural development 
of the timber industry. Smarting under the restraint of acts which 
they conceived to be unjust, the colonists had turned this way and that 
in search of avenues of escape from the offensive parliamentary enact- 
ments, and had become practiced in the art of legal evasion. The stamp 



396 Bulletin 370 

tax and the tea tax were but the last straws in a load that had weighed 
heavily on the patience of the colonists for years. ' While the bounties 
on naval stores beginning in 1704, and those on timber, lumber, and 
other wood products subsequent to January i, 1766, as well as the freedom 
of such products from duty after June 24, 1772, may have seemed to 
Englishmen to be very favorable to the colonies, the restrictions as to 
cutting and the requirements that aimed at enforced shipment of all 
products to Great Britain were exceedingly irksome to the dependencies, 
and no inconsiderable proportion of the antipathy to British control that 
developed in America was among the manufacturers and shippers of 
timber products. It is doubtful whether any historian of the United States 
has recognized the important influence of British legislation interfering 
with the natural coiu-se of exploitation of American forests, in shaping 
the forces that led to the Revolution of 1775. 

The shipment of lumber from Boston was stopped by the parliamen- 
tary act of 1774 closing that port until amends should be made to those 
who had suffered from the destruction of tea there in December, 1773. 
This act was followed by an act of 1775 placing an embargo on all com- 
merce of the New England colonies until order should be restored therein. 
A later act of the same year extended this embargo to New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina. A subsequent 
act of 1776 prohibited all trade with any of the thirteen colonies that 
joined in the Revolution. These war measures, of course, revoked the 
earlier acts remitting duties and affording bounties. The success of the 
Revolution ended the long struggle of the colonists against the efforts of 
the British Government to control the exploitation of American forests. 



SPECIAL DEVELOPMENTS IN FOREST LAW DURING THE FIFTY 
YEARS PRECEDING THE FORMATION OF THE UNION 

THE CONTROL OF SAND DUNES 

On July 1 6, 1709, the Massachusetts Court, in compliance with the 
request of the inhabitants of a part of the neck of land that acts as 
a breakwater for Cape Cod Harbor, incorporated the town of Truro. 
This settlement appears to have been established shortly before that 
date, and there were only about forty families in Truro at the time of 
the authorization of a town government. The ambitious hopes of the 
people of Truro were doomed to speedy and bitter disappointment. The 
cutting of timber and firewood, and the grazing of stock on the commons 
along the shore, soon destroyed the balance of the forces of nature which 
had hitherto been established at the meeting line of the land and the 
sea. The dire consequences of the thoughtless acts of the settlers are 
revealed in the language of an act of the General Court passed on January 
10, 1739, thirty years after the act of incorporation. The preamble 
to this act declared that because of the eating of the beach grass by cattle 
and horses along the shore of Eastern Harbor Meadows in the town of 
Truro, the sand was being driven, in storms and high winds, from the 
beach upon the meadows ; that a great part of the meadowland was already 
buried and useless for grass, and that the whole was likely to be covered 
with sand if the drifting were not prevented in time. The act prescribed 
a penalty of forty shillings a head for neat cattle, horses, or mares turned 
at large to feed "between said meadows and Provincetown bounds." 
This act was limited to five years from the time of publication, but the 
evil was not easily undone and a similar act was passed on April 5, 1745, 
for a limited period. The later act was extended, by successive acts 
of 1751, 1755, 1760, 1770, 1776, 1779, and 1785, until November i, 1797. 
Thus was the experience of the inhabitants of the western coast of France 
duplicated on the eastern shore of New England, and thus did Americans 
begin the attempt to control by legislation the baleful efifects of drifting 
sand. 

The act regarding the beaches of Truro was followed by one of Decem- 
ber 28, 1739, directed toward the protection from drifting sand of the 
meadows of Plumb Island, in Ipswich Bay. The preamble to this act 
shows that the eflEects of forest fires, as well as of the cutting of trees 
and the feeding of animals, were recognized as a contributing cause to 
the encroachments of drifting sand. This act forbade the running at 
large on Pltimb Island of any animals, under penalty of twenty shillings 
each for cattle, horses, of mares, and five shillings each for sheep or swine; 
imposed a penalty of ten pounds for firing the beach grass, bushes, or 

397 



398 Bulletin 370 

shrubs; and provided a forfeit of ten shillings for each bush, shrub, or tree 
under six inches in diameter cut from the said beach or marsh. This 
act was limited to five years, but was repeatedly extended during the 
colonial and confederation period until November i, 1797. 

On January 9, 1741, a penalty of forty shillings per head was imposed 
for cattle, horses, or mares not owned by an inhabitant, found feeding 
on the lands of Provincetown. So serious had the drifting of sand become 
even then that this act appears to have had chiefly in view the protection 
of Cape Cod harbor. The waste was so complete that the exodus of 
inhabitants rendered it necessary to pass a special enabling act on Novem- 
ber II, 1743, to authorize the few remaining inhabitants to conduct 
local affairs as if they had sufficient population for a town, and by an 
act of April 5, 1745, the Governor and Council were authorized to draw 
on the public treasury of the colony for the amount necessary to maintain 
a pound for animals taken up in Provincetown in the enforcement of 
the law. 

The act of January 9, 1741, also limited strictly the amount of stock 
which the inhabitants of Provincetown might themselves keep, and 
imposed penalties for the cutting of trees or bushes. This act was revived 
and continued by various successive acts until November i, 1797. 

Similar acts were passed for the protection of nearly a dozen other 

meadows and beaches during the colonial period, and several laws of 

this character were enacted during the confederation. An act of March 

7, 1797, after the establishment of the Union, made many of these acts 

perpetual. 1 

'- COOPERATIVE FORESTRY 

From the time of the very earliest settlements in New England there 
existed sequestered commons which to all practical purposes were* town 
communal forests. The year 1744, however, marks the introduction of 
an entirely new idea in the use and control of a common forest. This 
was nothing less than the organization of a number of private owners 
of forest land into a sort of corporation, for the purpose of managing 
their contiguous lands as a single unit, with the conscious intention of 
growing wood crops. On March 24, 1744, the General Court of the 
Province of Massachusetts Bay authorized any five proprietors of the 
lands embraced within Chebacco Woods, in the town of Ipswich, to 
apply to a justice of the peace, setting forth in writing their purpose to 
establish a common woods. The justice was then to make out warrants 
authorizing a call for a meeting of all proprietors, and if at this meeting 
two-thirds of all the proprietors, "reckoned by interest," should see 
meet, they might by a vote embody themselves into a society in which 
all the proprietors owning land within the proposed limits should be 



Forest Legislation in America Prior to March 4, 1789 399 

included. The proprietors were to control and manage this wood like the 
proprietors of other common fields and woods. Any party thinking 
himself aggrieved by the action taken at the meeting could apply for 
relief, and a court of general session would hear the cause and give 
a judgment that should be binding. The act was unlimited as to the time 
that the society should continue. 

On January 9, 1755, the Massachusetts Court authorized the pro- 
prietors of woodlands lying contiguous in the towns of Ipswich and 
Wenham, commonly known as "Wenham Great Swamp," to form an 
association like that authorized for Chebacco Woods. The object of 
this act is disclosed by the title, which read: "An Act for the securing 
of the growth and increase of a certain parcel of wood and timber in 
the towns of Ipswich and Wenham, in the county of Essex." The opera- 
tion of this act was at first limited to ten years, but it was extended by 
successive acts until November i, 1797. On March 7, 1797, this act, 
and another of March 6, 1 793 , covering other lands in the towns of Ipswich, 
Wenham, Beverly, and Manchester, were made perpetual. 

USE OF RIVERS AS HIGHWAYS FOR LOGS, RAFTS, AND OTHER TIMBER 

At a session of the General Assembly of Connecticut begun on May 14, 
1752, an act was passed "to prevent secret Trespasses in taking up and 
disposing of Saw Mill Logs and other Timber, Shingles and Staves, floating 
or floated down the Connecticut River." Any person taking up such 
logs or timber " fairly marked," or shingles and staves which were bundled, 
was required, within one week, to " enter the same with the kind, bigness, 
length, and marks on the logs and timber, the number of bundles and the 
kind of the shingles and staves, and by whom taken up, and the place 
where they, lye, with such clerk or clerks where strays and lost goods are 
by law to be entered, and shall let such logs, timber, shingles, and staves 
lye without disposing thereof, or any ways defacing the marks thereon, 
full six months after the first entering the same; on penalty of forfeiting 

and paying to the owner or owners the sum of 

ten shillings for every log or other stick of timber not exceeding thirty 
feet in length, and double the value of such shingles or staves and ten 
pounds for every log or other stick of timber which exceeds thirty feet 
in length." The person taking up the logs or timber was entitled to 
a fee of one shilling and two pence for every log or stick not over thirty 
feet long, and the same for a bundle of shingles or staves, and four shillings 
and two pence for every log or stick over thirty feet long; three pence 
of the reward for each log or stick to be given to the clerk for the recording. 
An owner of timber thus taken up and entered who took it away without 
paying the required fees, forfeited ten shillings for every log or stick 



400 Bulletin 370 

not over thirty feet long, the value of the shingles or staves, and five 
pounds for every log or stick over thirty feet long. If no owner appeared 
in six months, the person taking up the timber could convert it to his 
own use. 

In October, 1771, a similar law was enacted to prevent the theft of 
timber products from the Windsor Ferry River, and the General Assembly 
of Connecticut held at New Haven in October, 1785, passed an act pro- 
viding that any one who should stop, take up, or interrupt any mast, yard, 
or spar, over forty feet in length, floating down the Connecticut River, 
in Connecticut and above Middletown, without authority from the owner, 
should be liable for double damages to the owner. 

An enactment of April 28, 1781, in Massachusetts, provided that if 
timber were left by spring floods, on any improved land adjoining the 
Connecticut River, the owner of the land was to cause to be recorded 
in the Book of Records of the town the marks and lengths of the said timber 
and the place where it was left. He was then entitled to one shilling 
as reasonable damages for each stick of timber so left, two pence of which 
amount was to go to the town clerk as a fee for recording. A proviso 
saved to the owner of the timber the right to cause it to be removed by 
the 15th day of May succeeding the time when it was left, without liability 
for damages. However, if the owner of the timber failed to have it removed 
within twelve months from the date of the recording with the town clerk, 
the timber was to be adjudged the property of the owner of the land. 
By the terms of this act all islands within the Connecticut River were 
excepted from its provisions, but an additional act of July 7, 1786, ex- 
tended its provisions to " Smead's Island" in the Connecticut River. 

New Jersey early recognized that it was necessary for the colonies to 
boldly break away from the view of the English common law, that only 
tidal rivers were navigable, and the important part which the development 
of her timber resources played in this movement appears in the words 
of an act passed by the General Assembly on August 20, 1755, as follows: 

Whereas, The Transportation of Timber, Plank, Boards, Hay, and other Things 
to Market by Water, is a great Conveniency to the Inhabitants of this Colony, and 
the Preservation of those Advantages are highly worthy the Care of the Legislature, 

Be it enacted, That if any Person or Persons without first 

obtaining an Act of the General Assembly for that Purpose, shall, after the Publication 
of this act, erect any Dam, Bank, Sluice or other Thing which shall obstruct or pre- 
vent the free and uninterrupted Navigation of any River, Creek, or Stream of Water 
within this Colony, which is used for the Navigation of Boats or Flats, or for the 
transporting of Hay, Plank, Boards, or Timber, or shall fall any Trees across such 
Creek, or throw Brush or other Filth in any Part thereof, between the Mouth thereof 
and the uppermost Place thereon, now or of late used as a Landing, he, she, or they 
so offending shall severally forfeit the Sum of Five Pounds, Proclamation Money. 

On March 9, 1771, the Pennsylvania Legislature declared the Delaware 
and Lehigh Rivers and certain parts of the Neshaminey and Lechawaxin 



Forest Legislation in America Prior to March 4, 1789 401 

Creeks to be " common highways for vessels, boats, 

small craft and rafts of any kind whatsoever," and in another act of the 
same date made certain parts of the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers 
and several smaller streams public highways for the same vessels. On 
April 13, 1782, the Monongahela and Youghiogheny Rivers were made 
highways "so far up as they or either of them have been or can be 
made navigable for rafts, boats and canoes, and within the bounds and 
limits of this State." The economic necessity that led to the overthrow 
by legislation of the common-law test of navigability is strikingly dis- 
closed in the language of a Pennsylvania act of March 31, 1785, which 
read : 

And Whereas, The extensive countries which are watered by the river Susquehanna, 
and the numerous branches thereof, are stocked with immense quantities of oak, pine 
and other trees, suitable for staves, heading, scanthng, boards, planks, timbers for 
ship-building, masts, yards and bowsprits, from which great profit and advantage 
might arise to the owners thereof, if the same could be conducted in rafts and other- 
wise, down the said river, to the waters of Chesapeak, which trees must otherwise 
perish on the lands whereon they grew: For remedy whereof. 

Sec. IV. Be it enacted by the authority, aforesaid. That the river Susquehanna 
shall be deemed and taken to be a public highway, in all parts thereof within this state, 
from the division line of the state of Maryland and this state upwards to the town 
of Northumberland, in the county of Northumberland, and thence, by and along each 
of the two great branches of the same river, which meet at the said town, in and through- 
out the whole length and breadth of the same river. 

These acts marked the beginning of a policy which was extended to 
nimierous rivers in Pennsylvania, New York, and New England by acts 
passed subsequent to the formation of the national Union, and eventually 
adopted in Central, Western, and Southern States. 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION 

FOR MASSACHUSETTS 

Compact, Charter, and Laws, Colony of New Plymouth, p. 28, 34, 59, 89, 113, 251; 

44, 119, 275, 156, 165, 164; 156; 134, 153, 163. 
Plymouth Colony Records, Vol. II (1623-1682), p. 28, 54; 59. 
Records of Massachusetts Bay Colony: 

- Vol. I (1628-1641), p. 90, 281; loi, 292; 91. 

Vol. II (i 642-1 649), p. 180 (cf. Vol. Ill, p. 102); 169. 
Vol. Ill (1644-1657), p. 375. 

Vol. IV, Part I (1650-1660), p. 417; 222, 146, 222. 
Vol. IV, Part 2 (1661-1674), p. 421; 499. 
Vol. V (1674-1686), p. 23. 
General Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts Colony, 1672, reprinted in Colonial 

Laws of Massachusetts, p. 51; p. 160 sec. i, p. 165 sec. 2. 
Acts and Resolves, Province of Massachusetts Bay: 
Vol. I, p. 42, 324; 213, 655; 20, 181; 642. 
Vol. II, p. 423, 916, 917; 6; 967, 993, 1042. 
Vol. Ill, p. 40, 264, 647, 682; 128, 362, 533; 209, 516, 869, 181, 574, 755, 117, 210, 

326, 984, 338, 339, 361, 429, 446, 485, 486, 546, 739, 808, 868, 132, 799. 
Vol. IV, p. 617; 573, 766; 370, 530, 973, 22, 23, 370, 434, 530, 617, 973, 974, 731, 

974- 

Vol. V, p. 86, 459, 1 122; 39, 259, 904; 86, 458, 1 121, 174, 457, 174, 457, 1 120, 39, 
86, 174, 259, 457, 903, 1 120, 175, 459, 1 1 12. 
Acts and Resolves, Commonwealth of Massachusetts: 

( 1 784-1 785), p. 469, 157; 463, 462, 463, 463, 469. 

(1782-1783), p. 107, 532, 635; 106. 

(1780-1781), p. 480. 

Vol. II (Boston, 1807), p. 765. 
Laws of Commonwealth of Massachusetts (i 780-1 807): 

Vol. I (Boston 1807), p. 228; 258, 108; 103, 164; 53, 335. 

Vol. I (Boston 1823), p. 204. 

Vol. II, p. 997 (cf. Acts and Resolves, Prov. Mass. Bay, Vol. I, p. 181); 765. 

Vol. I (Boston 1 801), p. 224, 238. 
Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, p. 146 sec. 6; p. 17 sec. i, p. 122 sec. i, p. 169 sec. 32. 
Charter and General Laws of Massachusetts Colony and Province, chap. 150, p. 444. 
General Laws of Massachusetts, Vol. I, chap. 22 p. 92; chap. 15 p. 88, chap. 54 p. 136; 

chap. 31 p. 44, chap. 31 p. 44, chap. 26 p. 268, chap. 31 p. 87. 
Private and Special Statutes of Massachusetts: 

Vol. I, p. 16, 438. 

Vol. Ill, p. 4. 

FOR NEW HAMPSHIRE 

Provincial Papers of New Hampshire (Concord 1867): 

Vol. I (1623-1686), p. 139, 392; 138, 303. 

Vol. Ill, p. 334. 

Vol. Ill, part 2 (1692-1722), p. 115, 120, 334. 
Laws of New Hampshire (Manchester 1904), Vol. I (1679-1702), p. 739, 21; 739, 

592, 684; 82, 83, 208; 83. 
History of the Lumber Industry of America, by J. E. Defebaugh, Vol. II, p. 10. 
Collection, New Hampshire Historical Society, Vol. VIII (1680-1692), p. 40, 42, 53. 
Acts and Laws, Province of New Hampshire: 

(Portsmouth 1726), p. 27, 41; 41, 27; 143. 

(Portsmouth 1771), chap. 18 p. 30, chap. 32 p. 45; chap. 32 p. 45, chap. — p. 28; 
chap. 20 p. 32, chap. 94 p. 147, chap. — p. 225 (cf. Acts and Laws, Prov. N. H., 
Portsmouth 1 761, p. 142). 

(Portsmouth 1761), p. 190; 123, 144. 
Laws of State of New Hampshire (Exeter 1815), p. 418. 

FOR CONNECTICUT 

New Haven Colonial Records: 

Vol. I (i 638-1 649), p. 155; 25, 48, 83, 155, 165, 213, 358. 
Vol. II (1653-1665), p. 589. 

403 



404 Bulletin 370 

Colonial Records of Connecticut: 

Vol. I (i 636-1 665), p. 526; 60, 6, 558; 65, 60, 67, 79; 114, 248, 410. 

Vol. II (1665-1678), p. — . 

Vol. Ill (1678-1689), p. 235. 

Vol. IV (1689-1706), p. 316. 

Vol. V (1706-17 1 6), p. 434, 514, 499. 

Vol. VI (1717-1725), p. 60. 

Vol. VII (1726-1735), p. 456; 80, 519. 

Vol. IX (i 744-1 750), p. 286. 

Vol. X (1751-1757). P- loi. 

Vol. XIII (1768-1772), p. 514. 
Acts and Laws, Colony of Connecticut (New Loiidon 1750), p. 247; 246; 238. 
Acts and Laws, State of Connecticut (Hartford 1786), p. 254; 253; 245, 312; 334. 

FOR RHODE ISLAND 

Records of the Colony of Rhode Island, Vol. I (1636-1663), p. 107; 15, 97, 74, 175; 97, 
Acts and Laws, Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation: 

(Newport 1745), p. 36, 90; 285, 286; 27, 27; 162. 

(Newport 1752), p. 97. 
Early Records, Town of Providence, Record of the Commissioners of the City of 
Providence : 

Vol. I, p. 3. 

Vol. II, p. 54, 61, 141 (cf. p. 116). 

Vol. Ill, p. 90. 
History of the Lumber Industry of America, by J. E. Defebaugh, Vol. II, p. 298. 

FOR NEW YORK 

Colonial Laws of New York (Albany 1894): 

Vol. I, p. 36, 716; 401; 164. 

Vol. Ill, p. 318. 

Vol. IV, p. 304, 315, 395, 687, 898, 1 1 12, 508, 937; 371. 

Vol. V, p. 769; 390. 
Laws of New York (Greenleaf, 2d ed., 1798), Vol. II, p. 187; 122, 128. 
Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York, Vol. IV, p. 225, 262, 266, 
298, 302, 313, 501, 552, 587, 620, 632, 668, 672, 675, 720, 784, 823, 850. 

FOR NEW JERSEY 

Grants, Concessions, Constitutions, and Acts, Province of New Jersey (Ed. by Leaming 
and Spicer, Philadelphia 1752), p. 476; 129, 433; 343, 349 (cf. N. J. Archives, ist 
ser., Vol. XIII, p. 207, 208, 212, 215, 220; also East Jersey Rec, Vol. Ill, p. 172, 

173; 343- ^ . 

New Jersey Archives, First Series: 
Vol. XIII, p. 113, 461-463. 

Vol. XIV, p. 43, 44, 46, 69; 64 (cf. p. 26, 36, 38); 130-134. 

Vol. XV, p. 293, 294, 302, 305, 311, 643 (cf. p. 347, 355, 359, 388, 584, 618, 628). 
Vol. XXI, p. 29. 
Laws of New Jersey: 
(1717), p. 72. 
(1732), p. 71. 
(1800), p. 49. 
Acts of General Assembly, Province of New Jersey: 

(1752), chap. 67 p. 260; chap. 9 p. 15; chap. 9 p. 15, chap. 78 p. 285. 
(Burlington 1776), chap. 167 p. 114 (cf. N. J. Archives, ist ser., Vol. XV, p. 139, 
140, 150, 151), chap. 405 p. 272; chap. 38 p. 17 (cf. N. J. Archives, ist ser.. 
Vol. XIII, p. 534, 535, 537, 541; also Vol. II, p. 37), chap. 545 p. 354; chap. 38 
p. 17, chap. 84 p. 42, chap. 188 p. 134, chap. 569 p. 381 ; chap. 271 p. 205. 
(Woodbridge 1761), chap. 140 p. 263; chap. 123 p. 64. 
Acts of State of New Jersey from Declaration of Independence to December 24, 1783 
(Trenton 1784), chap. 194 p. 123, chap. 361 p. 331. 

FOR PENNSYLVANIA 

Votes and Proceedings, House of Representatives, Province of Pennsylvania (1752), 
Vol. I, p. 12; 25, 26, 19; 19. 



Forest Legislation in America Prior to March 4, 1789 405 

Laws of Province of Pennsylvania (1742), chap. 59 p. 24, chap. 335 p. 468; chap. 81 p. 

32; chap. 80 p. 30. 
Minutes of the Provincial Council, Pennsylvania (Colonial Records), Vol. II, p. 565. 
Laws of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 

(1700-1810), chap. 81 p. 20. 

Vol. I, chap. 469 p. , chap. 562 p. 277; chap. 626 p. 322, chap. 627 p. 324. 

Vol. II, p. 528; chap. 966 p. 43, chap. 1144 p. 311. 
Acts of General Assembly, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1782), chap. 161 p. 331, 

FOR DELAWARE 

Laws of State of Delaware (1797), Vol. I, p. 100, 226; 100; 227. 

FOR NORTH CAROLINA 

Laws of State of North Carolina (1791), p. 345, 441 ; 507; 494, 521. 
Revised Acts of North Carolina (1773), p. 457. 

FOR MARYLAND 

Archives of Maryland, Proceedings of Assembly: 

(1684-1692), p. 535. 

( 1 704-1 706), Vol. XXVI, p. 304. 
Laws of Maryland, 1724, chap. 14. 

FOR SOUTH CAROLINA 

Statutes at Large of South Carolina (1838): 

Vol. Ill, p. 497 Act no. 648; p. 497 Act no. 648, p. 686 Act no. 744. 
Vol. IV, p. 541 Act no. 1 1 61. 

FOR GEORGIA 

Laws of State of Georgia, Prince's Digest 1822, Vol. I, p. 245. 

FOR VIRGINIA 

Laws of Virginia (1823): 

Vol. I, p. 135; 135. 

Vol. VI, p. 233. 

Vol. XII, p. 388, 499. 
Economic History of Virginia, Bruce, Vol. I, p. 392. 

FOR COLONIES IN GENERAL 

Acts and Ordinances, Commonwealth of England (London 1658), p. 176. 
Statutes at Large: 

Ruffhead Series (London 1763): 

Vol. Ill, p. 182, 267 (cf. Vol. IV, p. 179), 374, 381. 

Vol. IV, p. 181 (cf. N. J. Archives, ist ser.. Vol. II, p. 24), 408, 467, 603. 

Vol. V, p. 197, 367, 663, 714. 

Vol. VI, p. 406, 507. 

Vol. VII, p. 402, 437, 409. 

Vol. VIII, p. 360, 288. 

Vol. IX, p. 143, 157. 

Vol. X, p. 253, 109. 

Vol. XI, p. 535, 232, 287. 
Pickering Series (Cambridge 1765): 

Vol. XIV, p. 384, 387. 

Vol. XXX, p. 336. 

Vol. XXXI, p. 560, 4, 37, 135. 
Economic and Social History of New England (1620-1789), Weeden (New York 1891), 
p. 156, 168, 243, 275, 356, 362, 394, 503, 578, 582, 586, 685, 687, 765, 783. ^ ^^ 
Industrial Experiments in British Colonies of North Amenca, Lord (Baltimore 1898), 
P- 69, 92, 93. 100. 



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